Page 337 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Yung Cheng Period (1723-1735) 201

were sent twice monthly to Nien at the Customs, and forwarded

by him to the Emperor. Among the vases {cho ch'i) many were of

egg colour, and of rounded form, lustrous and pure white like silver.
They combined blue and coloured decoration, and some had painted,

engraved, etched, or pierced ornament all ingeniously fashioned.

Imitation of the antique and invention of novelties, these were

truly the established principles of Nien.

The interesting list of wares made at the Imperial factory which

is given in detail on pp. 223-226 supplies a full commentary on this
meagre notice, illustrating the types which are merely hinted in the

T'ao lu and specifying the particular kinds of antiques which were re-

produced and many of the new processes invented in this reign. With

regard to the last, however, it appears that the chief credit was due to

Nien's gifted assistant, T'ang Ying. Most of the actual processes, such

as carving, engraving, piercing a jour, embossing in high and low

relief, blowing on of the glazes, painting in enamels, in gold and in

silver,! have already been described in previous chapters. Indeed

we may assume that all the science of the K'ang Hsi potters was
inherited by their successors in the Yung Cheng period, and we need

only concern ourselves with the novelties and the specialities of

the period.

A few words should be said first about the ware itself. Necessary

variations in the appearance of the Ching-te Chen porcelain, which

were due to purely natural causes such as the use of clays of

varying qualities or those from different localities, have been noted

from time to time. These differences are generally quite obvious

and they explain themselves. But apart from these there are

numerous instances in which the potters have deliberately departed

from the normal recipes in order to obtain some special effect. Thus

we saw that the cJiing-iien stone was introduced into the body

in imitations of the opaque and rather earthy-looking white Ting

Chou ware ; hua shih (steatite) was used for another type of opaque

porcelain which offered a vellum-like surface to the blue painter
;

and coarse, impure clays were found of great service in the imitation

of the dark-coloured body of the antique wares.

Many other modifications appear in the porcelain of the first

half of the eighteenth century. There is, for instance, a very dead
white ware, soft looking, but translucent, which occurs on some

1 Silvering the entire surface {mo yin), as opposed to merely decorating with painted

designs in silver (miao yin), appears to have been a novelty introduced byT'ang Ying.

—II 2 A