Page 385 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ch'ien Lung (1736-1795) 233

often used in a capricious fashion, with results rather curious than
beautifuh There are, for instance, examples of blue and white

vases being wholly or partially coated with fiambe, which have little

interest except as evidence that the potters could now produce
the variegated effect at will and in more ways than one.

The use of double glazes to produce new and curious effects is
characteristic of the period. The second glaze was applied in

various ways by blowing, flecking, or painting it over the first.

The Chiin glaze of the muffle kiln belongs to this type if it has,

as I think, been correctly identified with the blue green dappled
with crimson on Fig. 4 of Plate 128; and the bird's egg glazes
mentioned on p. 217 belong to the same class.^ Others of a similar
appearance, though not necessarily of the same technique, arc the
tea dust (ch'a yeh mo) and iron rust {Vieh hsiu).

The tea dust glaze has a scum of dull tea green specks over an
ochreous brown or bronze green glaze, applied either to the biscuit
or over an ordinary white glazed porcelain ; and it seems to have
been a speciality of the Ch'ien Lung period, though there are known
specimens with the Yung Cheng mark and many fine examples
were made in later reigns. But neither this glaze nor double glazes
in general are inventions of this time. It w^ould be more correct
to speak of them as revivals, for the early Japanese tea jars, which
are based on Chinese originals, illustrate the principle of the double
glaze, and there are specimens of stoneware as old as the Sung
if not the T'ang dynasty, with dark olive glaze flecked with tea
green, and scarcely distinguishable from the Ch'ien Lung tea dust.
It is stated on the authority of M. Billequin (see Bushell, 0. C. A.,
p. 518) that a " sumptuary law was made restricting the use of
the tea dust glaze to the Emperor, to evade which collectors used
to paint their specimens with imaginary cracks,- and even to put
in actual rivets to make them appear broken."

The iron rust is a dark lustrous brown glaze strewn with metallic

1 All interesting series of these bird's egg glazes appearing, as they often do, on
tiny vases was exhibited by his Excellency the Chinese Minister at the Whitechapel

Art Gallery in November, 1913.
-' There is a very old superstition in China that cracked or broken pottery is the

abode of evil spirits. The modern collector abhors the cracked or damaged specimen
for other reasons, and it is certain that such things would not be admitted to the
Imperial collections. Many rare and interesting pieces which have come to Europe
in the past will be found on examination to be more or less defective, and it is-

probable that we owe their presence chiefly to this circumstance.

—II 2 E