Page 179 - 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 loi

design, and fired in a small " muffle " or enameller's kiln, where the

requisite heat to melt the flux and fix the colours could be easily

obtained.

Though the T^ao shuo, in the section dealing with Ming technique,
makes a general allusion to painting in colours on the glaze, the

only specific reference to any colour of the muffle kiln, excepting

gold, is to the red obtained from sulphate of iron {fan hung se).
This, we are told, was made with 1 oz. of calcined sulphate of iron

(ch'ing fan) and 5 oz. of carbonate of lead, mixed with Canton ox-

glue to make it adhere to the porcelain before it was fired. This

is the iron red, the rouge de fer of the French, which varies in tint
from orange or coral to deep brick red, and in texture from an impal-

pable film almost to the consistency of a glaze, according to the

quantity of lead flux used with it. On the older wares it is often

deeply iridescent and lustrous, owing to the decomposition of the

lead flux. This /an hung is the colour which the Chia Ching potters

were fain to substitute for the underglaze copper red {chi hung)
when the usual material for that highly prized colour had come

to an end, and difficulty was experienced in finding an effective

substitute.

The remaining colours of the on-glaze palette are more obviously

enamels that is to say, glassy compounds ; and as they were,
;

in accordance with Chinese custom, very lightly charged with colour-

ing matter, it was necessary to pile them on thickly where depth

of colour was required.

Hence the thickly encrusted appearance of much of the Chinese

enamelled porcelain. The Wan Li enamels consisted of trans-

parent greens of several shades (all derived from copper), including

a very blue green which seems to have been peculiar to the Ming

palette, yellow (from antimony) pale and clear or brownish and

rather opaque, and transparent aubergine, a colour derived from

manganese and varying in tint from purple to brown. Two thin

—dry pigments one an iron red and the other a brown black colour
—derived from manganese were used for drawing outlines ; and

the brown black was also used in masses with a coating of trans-

parent green to form a green black colour, the same which is so

highly prized on the famille noire porcelains of the K'ang Hsi period.

As for the blue enamel of the K'ang Hsi period, it can hardly be

said to have existed before the end of the Ming dynasty.

1 See, however, p. 85,