Page 250 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

152 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain |

and filled in with coloured glaze in a ground of aubergine (brinjal)

purple. There are similar specimens with green ground, and both

types are frequently classed with Ming wares. Some of them may

indeed belong to the late Ming period,^ but those with finer finish
are certainly K'ang Hsi. They are usually marked with rough,
undecipherable seal marks in blue, which are commonly known as

shop marks.

Some of the figures of deities, birds and animals, besides the small

ornamental objects such as brush- washers in the form of lotus

leaves and little water vessels for the writing table are of very high
quality, skilfully modelled and of material far finer than that described

by d'Entrecolles. Fig. 2, Plate 99, a statuette of Ho Hsien-ku, one of

the Eight Immortals, is an example. The flesh is in white biscuit,

showing the fine grain of the porcelain, white to-day, though possibly

it was originally coloured with unfired pigment and gilt as was often
the case. The glazes on this finer quality of ware, especially the

green and the aubergine, are peculiarly smooth and sleek, and the

yellow is fuller and browner than on the kindred ware, enamelled

on the biscuit, which we now proceed to investigate.
The French term, emaille sur biscuit, is used somewhat broadly

to cover the coloured glazes just described, as well as the enamels

Weproper of the muffle kiln. shall try to confine the expression,

" on-biscuit enamels," to the softer, vitrifiable enamels which are

fired at a lower temperature and in a smaller kiln or muffle. These

are, in fact, the same enamels as are used in the ordinary famille
verte porcelain painted over the finished glaze, but when applied
direct to the biscuit they have a slightly darker and mellower tone,

the background of biscuit reflecting less light than the glittering

white glaze.

Though the colour scheme of this group is substantially the same
as that of the san ts'ai glazes, and though the enamels when used
in wide areas are not always easily distinguished from the glazes,
the former do, in fact, differ in containing more lead, being actually
softer and more liable to acquire crackle and iridescence, and in
some cases there are appreciable differences in tint. The yellow
enamel, for instance, is as a rule paler, and even when of a dark
tint it has a muddy tone wanting in the fullness and strength of the
yellow glaze ; the green enamel varies widely in tone from the
glaze, and includes, besides, several fresh shades, among which is a

1 See footnote on p. 89.