Page 305 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Monochromes 179

the peach bloom. It may be added that the maroon red glaze is

usually uncrackled.

As to the overglaze red, which is known by the names of mo hung
(painted red) and is'ai hung (enamel red), it is the colour derived
from iron, and it was used both as one of the enamels of the famille
verte palette and as a monochrome. In both capacities it figured
on Ming porcelain, and was fully discussed in that connection.
On K'ang Hsi wares it varied in tone from dark brick red to a light
orange, according to the density of the pigment, and in texture
from a thin dry film to a lustrous enamel, according to the quantity
of fluxing material ^ combined with it. Among the richly fluxed
varieties is a fine tomato colour of light, translucent tone. Some-
times the iron red is found as sole medium for painted designs,
as on a rouleau vase in the Salting collection, but more commonly

it serves as a ground colour between panels of enamelled ornament

(Plate 103), or in border passages. In these last two positions it is

usually of a light orange shade, and broken by floral scrolls reserved

Ain white. dark shade of the same pigment is also used in diapers

of curled scrolls, forming a groundwork for enamelled decoration.

There are besides beautiful examples of a pure red monochrome

formed of this colour, but I have only met with these among the

later wares.

The blue monochromes include a large number of glazes varying
in depth and shade with the quality and quantity of the cobalt
which is mingled with the glazing material. These are chiao chHng
(blue monochrome glazes), and they are all high-fired colours.
They include the chi ch'ing ^ or deep sky blue, whose darker shades
are also named ta chHng (gros bleu), the slaty blue, the pale clear
blue, 3 the dark and light lavender shades, and the faintly tinted
clair de lune or " moon white " {yileh pai), in which the amount of
cobalt used must have been infinitesimal. But it would be useless
to attempt to catalogue the innumerable shades of blue, which
must have varied with every fresh mixture of colour and glaze and

every fresh firing.
There is, however, another group materially different from the

^ i.e. lead glass.
2 Chi, lit. sky-clearing, and chi ch'ing might be rendered " blue of the sky after rain."

» There are some bowls and bottles in the Dresden collection with glazes of a pale

luminous blue which are hard to parallel elsewhere.