Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Thu, 2 Feb 2006 13:44:11 -0500 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Barbara,
There is a major difference between the ceramics used by Chinese workers and
the material shipped to American and British markets for household
ornamentation. The latter became popular in American Victorian houses following the
1876 and 1893 Expositions. Ornamental Asian ceramics provide an opportunity to
test for class status in domestic behavior. The so-called Geisha designs were
applied to a variety of expensive to cheap export ceramics in Japan, Korea
and China through the late 19th and through much of the 20th century. Very
fine chargers, tea sets or flat ware with hand-painted temple, water and temple,
or tea ceremony designs were more expensive than the mass-produced
varieties. Cheaper mass-produced transfer or stencil outlines accented by limited and
sloppy hand-painting were and are available in a variety of retail outlets.
However, Japanese ceramic collectors have produced large volumes of books on
Asian export ceramics and care should be taken to mis-interpret mass-produced
ceramics with American retail costs, as some of those command high prices in
their collector markets.
One problem with scaling is that even the poorest families competed with
wealthy families to present a nicely decorated parlor or serve guests on fine
tea sets. This is not to say that generalities cannot be tested against working,
middle, and high economic classes or by ethnic groups for quality of Asian
ornamental ceramics. At the Alicante site at 5th and Redwood Streets in San
Diego, California, my crew recovered tea set remains from a 1910 medical
doctor's house that I believe reflects American high economic class parlor
display. Photographed with a macro-lens, samples of tea cups exhibited exceedingly
tiny people with fine detail in their faces and clothing. On the other side of
the coin, the Roeslein Homestead on the San Dieguito River in San Diego
County, California yielded a pre-1917 working class household Asian ceramics that
were mass-produced and only one or two specimens of any design. I believe
more work needs to be done before anyone can attempt economic scaling on Asian
ornamental parlor ceramics.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
|
|
|