Page 169 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

The Technique of the Ming Porcelain 93

of hasty finish, which occur not infrequently on the export wares.

The importance of the foot in the eyes of the Chinese collector may

be judged from the following extract from the Shih ch'hig jih cha * ;

" Distinguish porcelain by the vessel's foot. The Yung Lo
' press-hand ' bowls have a glazed bottom but a sandy foot ; Hsiian
ware altar cups have ' cauldron ' ^ bottom (i.e. convex beneath)
and wire-like foot ; Chia Ching ware flat cups decorated with fish
have a ' loaf ' centre^ (i.e. convex inside) and rounded foot. All

porcelain vessels issue from the kiln with bottoms and feet which
can testify to the fashion of the firing."

It is not always easy und-ided by illustration to interpret the
Chinese metaphors, but it is a matter of observation that many of
the Sung bowls, for instance, have a conical finish under the base,
and that the same pointed finish appears on some of the early Ming
types, such as the red bowls with Yung Lo mark. The " loaf
centre " of the Chia Ching bowls seems to refer to the convexity
described on p. 35. The blue and white conical bowls with Yung
Lo mark (see p. 6) have, as a rule, a small glazed base and a rela-
tively wide unglazed foot rim.

But this digression on the nether peculiarities of the different
wares has led us away from the subject of glaze. The proverbial
thickness and solidity of the early Ming glazes, which are likened to
" massed lard," are due to the piling up of successive coatings of
glaze to ensure a perfect covering for the body, and the same pro-

cess was responsible for the undulating appearance of the surface,
which rose up in small rounded elevations " like grains of millet "
and displayed corresponding depressions.* This uneven effect, due
to an excess of glaze, was much prized by the Chinese connoisseurs,
who gave it descriptive names like " millet markings," " chicken
skin," or " orange peel," and the potters of later periods imitated
it freely and often to excess. Porcelain glazes are rarely dead

white, and, speaking generally, it may be said that the qualifying

1 Quoted in T'ao lu, bk. viii., fol. 6.

*/u //. " Among other things the porcelain with glaze

* Man bsin.

* See T'ao shuo, bk. iii., fol. 7 verso.

lustrous and thick like massed lard, and which has millet grains rising like chicken skin
and displays palm eyes {(sung yen) like orange skin, is prized." The expression " palm
eyes " occurring by itself in other contexts has given rise to conflicting opinions, but

its use here, qualified by the comparison with orange peel and in contrast with the

granular elevations, points clearly to some sort of depressions or pittings which, being

characteristic of the classical porcelain, came to be regarded as beauty spots.