Page 311 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Monochromes 183

verte enamels or in blue and white ; and in both cases the blue surface
was usually embellished with light traceries in gold. Plate 110 illus-
trates both types. Both are highly prized by collectors, and change
hands at high prices when of the good quality which is usual on the

K'ang Hsi specimens. We have already noted ^ the occasional

decoration of the powder blue ground with designs in famille verte
enamels, and Pere d'Entrecolles ^ records another process of orna-
mentation which was applied to all the blue groimds of this group,
viz. the washed, the sponged, and the powder blues : " There
are workmen who trace designs with the point of a long needle on
this blue whether souffle or otherwise ; the needle removes as many
little specks of dry blue as are necessary to form the design; then
the glaze is put on." From this precise description it is easy to

recognise this simple but effective decoration. There are two ex-

amples in the British Museum Avith dragon designs etched in this

fashion, the one in a washed blue, and the other in a sponged blue
ground. The pattern appears in white outline where the blue has

been removed by the needle and the porcelain body exposed.
Long usage has given sanction to the term " mazarine blue."

It was applied to the dark blue ground colour of eighteenth century
English porcelain, and in the contemporary catalogues the name
" mazareen " was given to any kind of deep blue from the mottled

violet of Chelsea to the powdery gros bleu of Worcester. In refer-
ence to Chinese porcelain it is used to-day with similar freedom
for the ta chHng or dark sky blue and for the powder blue. Assuming
that the phrase derives from the famous Cardinal Mazarin, it cannot
in its original sense have had any reference to powder blue, for the
Cardinal died in 1661, and, if he had a weakness for blue mono-
chrome, it must have been for some variety of the chiao ch'ing or
blue glazes proper which were current at the end of the Ming and
the beginning of the Ch'ing dynasties. At the present day it is
impossible to guess the true shade of mazarine blue, and we must
be content to regard it as a phrase connoting a deep blue monochrome
the exact definition of which has gone beyond recall.^

The K'ang Hsi mark is sometimes found on porcelain coated
with a very dark purplish blue glaze with soft looking surface and

»P. 170.

* Second letter, section xvii.
» The word " mazarine " has become naturalised in the English language. Gold-
smith spoke of " gowns of mazarine blue edged with fur " ; and " Ingoldsby " says the
sky was " bright mazarine." See R. L. Hobson, Worcester Porcelain, p. 101.