Page 329 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K*ang Hsi Monochromes 193

The mirror black is usually a monochrome tricked out with gilt

traceries, but as in the case of the powder blue the light Chinese

gilding is usually worn away, and often its quondam presence can

now only be detected by a faint oily film which appears when the

porcelain is held obliquely to the light. It is a common practice

to have this lost gilding replaced by modern work.

There are several large vases of triple-gourd form in the Charlotten-

burg Palace with the upper and lower lobes coated with gilt mirror

black, and the central bulb enamelled with famille verie colours
;

and another use of the glaze as panel decoration in a lustrous brown

ground has already been noted in an extract from Pere d'Entrecolles
;

it is also found on rare specimens as a l^ackground for panels of

famille verte enamelling. But its most effective use is as a pure

monochrome only relieved by faint gilding, and some of the choicest

K'ang Hsi specimens have soft brown reflexions in the lustre of the

surface. Another and probably a later type of mirror black is a

thick lacquer-like glaze with signs of minute crackle.

There is a type of glaze which, though variegated with many

tints, still belongs to the category of monochromes. This is the

flambe, to use the suggestive French term which implies a surface

shot with flame-like streaks of varying colour. This capricious

colouring, the result of some chance action of the fire upon copper

oxide in the glaze, had long been known to the Chinese potters.

It appeared on the Chiin Chou wares of the Sung and Yiian dynasties,

and it must have occurred many times on the Ming copper mono-

chromes ; but up to the end of the K'ang Hsi period it seems to
have been still more or less accidental on the Ching-te Chen porcelain,

—if we can believe the circumstantial account written by Pere d'Entre-

colles in the year 1722 ^ : " I have been shown one of the porcelains

which are called yao pien, or transmutation. This transmutation

takes place in the kiln, and results from defective or excessive

firing, or perhaps from other circumstances which are not easy to

guess. This specimen which, according to the workman's idea,

is a failure and the child of pure chance, is none the less beautiful,

and none the less valued. The potter had set out to make vases

Aof souffle red. hundred pieces were entirely spoilt, and the specimen

in question came from the kiln with the appearance of a sort of agate.

Were they but willing to take the risk and the expense of successive

experiments, the potters would eventually discover the secret of

^ Second letter, section xi.

II 7.