Page 228 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

140 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

indifferent blue and white was made for the European table services,
and summarily decorated with baskets of flowers, the usual flower-

ing plant designs, close patterns of small blossoms, floral scrolls

with large, meaningless flowers, ivy scrolls, passion flowers, and
numerous stereotyped designs, such as dragons in sea waves, prunus
pattern borders, pine tree and stork, a garden fence with rockery
and flowering shrubs, groups from the Hundred Antiques, a parrot
on a tree stump, etc. The blue of these pieces is usually rather
dull and heavy, but the ware has the characteristic appearance of
K'ang Hsi porcelain, and was evidently made for the most part
about the year 1700. If marked at all, the marks are usually sym-
bols, such as the double fish, the lozenge, the leaf, a tripod vase,
and a strange form of the character shou known as the " spider
mark" (see vol. i., p. 225). The plates are often edged with lustrous
brown glaze to prevent that chipping and scaling to which the
Chinese glaze was specially liable on projecting parts of the ware.^

Something has already been said^ of another very distinctive
class of blue and white for which the misleading name of " soft
paste " has been widely adopted. The term is of American origin
and has been too readily accepted, for it is not only inaccurate as
a description, but is already current in Europe for a totally different
ware, which it describes with greater exactitude, viz. the artificial,
glassy porcelains made at Sevres and Chelsea and other factories,
chiefly in France and England, in the middle of the eighteenth
century. In actual fact the Chinese ware to which the term " soft
paste " is applied has an intensely hard body. The glaze, however,
which is softer than that of the ordinary porcelain, contains a pro-
portion of lead, and if not actually crackled from the first becomes
so in use, the crackle lines being usually irregular and undecided.

A detailed description of the manufacture of this ware is given

by Pere d'Entrecolles,^ though he is probably at fault in supposing
that its chief ingredient was a recent discovery in 1722. It was

had been successful. These objects were ordered by the Canton merchants, who
deal with the Europeans ; for in China people are not interested in porcelain which

entails such great cost."

^ This defect is noticed by P6re d'EntrecoUes, who mentions another remedy used
by the Chinese potters. They applied, he tells us in section ii. of the second letter, a
preparation of bamboo ashes mixed with glazing material to the edges of the plate
before the glazing proper. This was supposed to have the desired effect without

impairing the whiteness of the porcelain.
= See p. 74.
" Second letter, section iv.