Page 318 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

i88 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

the appearance of age and should belong to the early part of the
K'ang Hsi period.

Most of the green glazes are low fired, melting in the temperature
of the demi-grand feu and the muffle kiln. The high-fired greens
are those of celadon class. There is the lang yao ^ green, which has
been discussed under that heading, a crackled glaze, in colour inter-
mediate between apple green and the sea green celadon, and with
a surface texture hazy with bubbles like the sang de boeuf, to which
it is a near relation. This soft and beautiful colour has been described
as a " copper celadon," and though Dr. Bushel! refuses his blessing

on the name it seems to me a particularly happy expression. For
the colour apparently results from the same copper medium which

under slightly different firing conditions produces the sang de hceuf
red and at the same time its tint approaches very nearly to the
typical celadon green.

The true celadon glaze was freely employed on the early Ch'ing
porcelains, especially on those of K'ang Hsi and Yung Cheng periods.
It is a beautiful pale olive or sea green colour, made light by the
pure Avhite porcelain beneath which its transparent nature permits
to shine through. Compared with the Sung celadons as we know
them,2 the Ch'ing dynasty ware is thinner in material and glaze,
wanting in the peculiar solidity of appearance of the ancient wares ;
the body is whiter and finer, and the base is usually white with the
ordinary porcelain glaze. There is, moreover, no " brown mouth
and iron foot," unless indeed this feature has been deliberately
added by means of a dressing of ferruginous clay, a make-up which
is too obvious to deceive the initiated. There were, however, some
careful imitations of the ancient celadons made at this time and
got up with the appearance of antiquity, but these were exceptional

productions.^

—Pere d'Entrecolles, writing in 1722, alludes to the K'ang Hsi

celadon in the following terms ^ : " I was shown this year for the
first time a kind of porcelain which is now in fashion ; its colour
verges on olive and they call it long tsiven. I saw some which was
called tsim ko {cliing kuo), the name of a fruit which closely resembles

» See p. 125.
* i.e. the strong heavy types. Chinese literature speaks of thinner and more refined

celadons of the Sung period, but few of these have come down to our day.
^ P^re d'Entrecolles fully describes these spurious celadons. See vol. i., p. 83.
* Second letter, section vii.