Page 317 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Monochromes 187

in however small a quantity gives the blue a purple or violet strain.

By the simple method of graduating the amount of manganese

which was allowed to remain with the cobalt the potters were able

to obtain many intermediate shades between dark blue and purple

for their monochrome glazes.

The green monochromes are scarcely less numerous than the
blue. There are the transparent greens of apple or leaf green

shades whether even or mottled, which have been described

among the glazes applied to the biscuit and among the enamels

of the famille verte. These were used as monochromes and ground

colours ; and closely akin to them are (1) the cucumber green
{kua p'i III), in which a yellowish leaf green is heavily mottled

with darker tints, and (2) the snake skin green {she p'i lil), a deep

transparent green with iridescent surface, one of the colours for

which the directorate of Ts'ang Ying-hsiian was celebrated. There

are good examples of both in the Salting Collection, but it would

be useless to reproduce them except in colour.

There are the apple and emerald green crackles (in both cases

a green glaze overlying a grey or stone-coloured crackle), but these

Ahave already been discussed.^ somewhat similar technique

characterises the series of semi-opaque and crackled green glazes

of camelia leaf, myrtle, spinach, light and dark sage, dull emerald

and several intermediate tints. These are soft-looking glazes with

small but very regular crackle, ^ and their surface often has a
" satiny " sheen which recalls the Yi-hsing glazes. They are evi-

dently glazes of the demi-grand feu, and the colouring agent is

doubtless copper, though apparently modified with other ingredients.

How far this particular group was used in the K'ang Hsi period is
hard to say. Most of the specimens which I have seen give me

the impression of a later make, but as there are a few which might

come within the K'ang Hsi limits I have taken this opportunity to

discuss them.

There is one specimen of a rare green in the British Museum

to which I cannot recall a parallel. It is a bowl with the ordinary

white glaze, but covered on the exterior with a very bright yellowish

green, like the young grass with the sun shining on it. It is, perhaps,
rather in the nature of an enamel than a glaze, but the ware has

» See p. 102.
* These glazes generally have the appearance of being in two coats, and in soms

cases there actually seem to be two layers of crackle.