Page 312 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

184 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

minute crackle. It is apparently one of those glazes which are

fired in the temperate parts of the kiln, and its use is more frequent

on porcelains of a slightly later period.

Finally, the turquoise blue, variously named jei ts'ui (kingfisher

blue) and k'ung cliiao liX (peacock green), was freely used as a mono-

chrome on figures and ornamental wares. It is a colour which

descends from Ming times, and whose use has continued unchecked

to the present day, so that it is often extremely difficult to give a

precise date to any particular specimen, especially if the object

happens to be of archaic form, a copy of an old bronze or the like.

Its nature has already been discussed ^ among the Ming glazes, and

one can only say that the K'ang Hsi pieces have all the virtues of

—the K'ang Hsi manufacture fine material, good potting, shapely

form, and beautiful quality of colour. The tint varies widely from

the soft turquoise blue of kingfisher feathers to a deep turquoise

green, and some of the most attractive specimens are mottled or

spotted with patches of greenish black. The glaze is always minutely

crackled, and has sufficient transparency to allow engraved or carved

designs on the body to be visible. It is a colour which develops

well on an earthen body, and the potters often mixed coarse clay

with the ware which was intended to receive the turquoise glaze
;

but this, I think, was mainly practised after the K'ang Hsi period,

and the K'ang Hsi specimens will, as a rule, be found to have a pure

white porcelain basis.

As in the Ming wares, the turquoise sometimes shares the field

with an aubergine purple of violet tone, both colours being of

the demi-grmid feu. The purple is also used as a monochrome.
There are, in fact, two aubergine purple monochromes, the one

a thick and relatively opaque colour sometimes full of minute

points as though it had been blown on like the powder blue, the

other a thin transparent (and often iridescent) glaze of browner

tone. Both are derived from cobaltiferous ore of manganese,

both have descended from the Ming period, and have already

been discussed as monochromes and as colours applied to the

biscuit.

The cobaltiferous ore of manganese is the same material which
is used to give a blue colour, but in this case the manganese is re-
moved, and the cobalt rendered as pure as possible. For the
manganese if in excess produces a purplish brown, and its presence

^See p. 99.