Page 176 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

gS Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

European shapes, such as jugs and tankards. In the Ch'ing dynasty
European forms were made wholesale.

In considering the colours used in the decoration, we naturally
take first the limited number which were developed in the full heat
of the porcelain furnace, the couleurs de grand feu of the French

classification. These were either incorporated in the glazing material
or painted on the porcelain body and protected by the glaze.

Chief among them was blue, which we have already discussed in

—its various qualities. The Mohammedan blue the su-ni-p'o of

the Hsiian Te period and the hui hui chHng of the reigns of Cheng

—Te and Chia Ching was an imported material of pre-eminent quality
—but of uncertain supply. It was supplemented and, indeed, usually
—blended with the native mineral ^ which was found in several

places. Thus the po-fang blue (so called from a place name) was
found in the district of Lo-p'ing Hsien in the Jao-chou Fu ; but the
mines were closed after a riot in the Chia Ching period, and its
place was taken by a blue known as shih-tzu ch'ing (stone, or mineral,
blue) from the prefecture of Jui-chou in Kiangsi. According to
Bushell ^ the po-fang blue was very dark in colour, and it was some-
times known as Fo t'ou chHng (Buddha's head blue) from the tradi-
tional colour of the hair of Buddha. Another material used for
painting porcelain was the hei che shih (black red mineral) from
Hsin-chien in Lu-ling, which was also called wu ming tzu. It was
evidently a cobaltiferous ore of manganese and a blue-producing
mineral, doubtless the same as the wu ming i (nameless wonder),
which we have already found in use as a name for cobalt.

Much confusion exists, in Chinese works, on the subject of these
blues, and it is stated in one place that the " Buddha head blue "
was a variety of the wu ming i, which would make the po fang blue
and the wu ming i and the wu ming tzu one and the same thing.
In effect they were the same species of mineral, and the local dis-
tinctions are of no account at the present day except in so far as
they explain the variety of tints in the Ming blue and white. It
is, however, interesting to learn from a note on Mohammedan blue

^ Cobalt, the source of the ceramic blues, is obtained from cobaltiferous ore of man-
ganese, and its quality varies according to the purity of the ore and the care with which

it is refined.

2 0. C. A., p. 263. This very dark blue recalls one of the Chia Ching types noted
on page 36.