Page 249 - 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 151

account of the manufacture of one of the types of porcelain which
have been indiscriminately assigned to the Ming period. This on-

biscuit polychrome was undoubtedly made in the Ming dynasty,
but in vicAv of d'Entrecolles' description it will be safe to assume
that, unless there is some verj^ good evidence to the contrar\% the
examples in our collections are not older than K'ang Hsi. The
type is easily identified from the above quotation, and there is a
little group of the wares in the British Museum, mostly small figures
and ornaments with washes of green, brownish yellow and aubergine
purple applied direct to the biscuit, and on some of the unglazed

details the unfired vermilion still adheres. These coloured glazes
are compounded with powdered flint, lead, saltpetre, and colouring
oxides, and the porcelain belongs to the comprehensive group of

sa7i ts'ai or three-colour ware, although the three colours green,

— —yellow and aubergine are supplemented by a black formed of brown

black pigment under one of the translucent glazes and a white
which d'Entrecolles describes i as composed of } ounce of powdered
flint to every ounce of white lead. This last forms the thin, iridescent

film often of a faintly greenish tinge, which serves as white on these

three-colour porcelains. In rare cases also a violet blue enamel
is added to the colour scheme.

A characteristic of this particular type is the absence of any

painted outlines. The colours are merely broad washes bounded
by the flow of the glaze, and this style of polychrome is best suited
to figures and moulded ornamental pieces, in which the details
of the design form natural lines of demarcation for the glazes. On
a flat surface this method of coloration is only suited to such
patchy patterns as the so-called tiger skin and the tortoiseshell

wares.

The Dresden collection is oeculiarlv rich in this kind of san is'ai,
but though two or three of the specimens (Plate 71, Figs. 1 and 2)
differing considerably from the rest, are clearly of the Ming period,
the great majority are undoubtedly contemporaneous with the form-
ing of the collection, viz. of the K'ang Hsi period. The latter include
numerous figures, human and animal, and ornaments such as the
junk on Plate 98, besides some complicated structures of rocks
and shrines and grottos, peopled with tiny images and human
figures. To this group belong such specimens as the " brinjal
bowls," with everted rim and slight floral designs engraved in outline

1 Loc. cit., section xiv.