Page 243 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Polychrome Porcelains 147

the softer enamel colours such as green and yellow, though in one
sense an underglaze colour, does not belong to this group.

From this group of polychrome porcelain we pass to another

in which the colour is given by washes of various glazes. A few

of the high-fired glazes are employed for this purpose, especially

blue in combination with celadon green and white, and a few clay

slips, of which the commonest is a dressing of brown clay applied
without any glaze and producing an iron-coloured surface. The
most familiar members of this group are small Taoist figures of rough

but vivacious modelling with draperies glazed blue, celadon and

white,! and the base unglazed and slightly browned in the firing.

Collectors are tempted to regard these figures as late or modern

productions, but examples in the Dresden collection prove that

this technique was employed in the K'ang Hsi period. In the same

collection there are numbers of small toy figures, such as monkeys,

oxen, grotesque human forms, etc., sometimes serving as whistles

or as water-droppers. They are made of coarse porcelain or stone-

ware with a thin dressing of brown ferruginous clay, and touches

of high-fired glazes. The appearance of these, too, is so modern

that we realise with feelings of surprise that they formed part of

the collection of Augustus the Strong.

The polychrome porcelain coloured with glazes of the demi-

grand feu (i.e. glazes fired in the more temperate parts of the large
kiln) has been discussed in the chapters on the Ming period.- The

group characterised by green, turquoise and aubergine violet, semi-

opaque, and minutely crackled is not conspicuous among K'ang Hsi

porcelains indeed it seems to have virtually ceased with the Ming
;

dynasty. The individual colours, however, were still used as

monochromes ; in combination they are chiefly represented by

aubergine violet and turquoise in broad washes on such objects

as peach-shaped wine pots, Buddhist lions with joss-stick holders

attached, parrots, and similar ornaments.

The other three-colour group, composed of transparent green,

yellow and aubergine purple glazes, usually associated with designs

finely etched with a metal point on the body, were freely used in

the K'ang Hsi and Ymig Cheng periods in imitation of Ming proto-

types. Such specimens are often characterised by extreme neatness

A1 similar combination of coloured glazes was eflectively used on the moulded

porcelains of the Japanese Hirado factory.
2 See pp. 48 and 100.