Page 363 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Yung Chang Period (1723-1735) 217

cases the potters were content to simulate the "brown mouth and
iron foot " of the dark-bodied Sung wares by dressing the mouth
and the exposed part of the base with ferruginous clay. This is
observable on the lavender crackles which imitate the Kuan, and

the stone grey crackles of the Ko type, by which the Sung

originals were until recent years represented in most Western

collections.

In other cases coarse clays of impure colour, and even earthen-
ware bodies were used in the reproductions. The admirable imi-
tations of the mottled and fiamhe Chlin glazes which were apparently
a special triumph of T'ang-ying appear both on a white porcelain
which had to be carefully concealed by the coloured glazes, and
on a soft earthenware body. Both these kinds are found with the

Yung Cheng mark stamped in the paste, and so correct are the

glaze effects that even collectors of considerable experience have
been deceived by specimens from which the mark in question has
been ground away.

In addition to the copies of the high-fired Chlin glazes, there was
the " Chlin glaze of the muffle kiln " {lu chiin yu) which is described
as something between the glaze applied to the Yi-hsing stoneware
and the Kuangtung glazes. The items immediately following this
information in the Imperial list ^ make it clear that the writer refers

to the glazes of Ou on the Yi-hsing pottery, and to the blue mottled
glazes of the Canton stoneware. The enamel which most closely

answers to the description of this Chiin glaze of the muffle kiln ^ is

that illustrated in Fig. 4 of Plate 128, a vase with dark-coloured
foot rim, and an opaque greenish blue enamel flecked with dark ruby
pink. This enamel varies considerably in appearance according to

the preponderance of the red or the blue in the combination ; but
it is an enamel of the muffle kiln and its markings recall the dappled

Chiin glazes. I have, moreover, seen this glaze actually applied

to a teapot of Yi-hsing red stoneware. This glaze seems to belong

to a type, which was largely developed in the Ch'ien Lung period,

of glazes resembling if not actually imitating the mottled surface

of certain birds' eggs, e.g. the robin, the lark, the sparrow, etc.

1 See p. 224, Nos. 15-17.

A* recipe given in the Tao lu (bk. iii., fol. 12 verso) for the lu chiin glaze speaks of

" crystals of nitre, rock crystal, and (?) cobaltiferous manganese (liao) mixed with ordinary

glaze." But apart from the uncertain rendering of liao (which Bushell takes as ch'ing
liao, i.e. the material used for blue painting), it is difficult to see how this composition,,

including the ordinary porcelain glaze, can have been fired in the muffle kiln.

—II 2C