Page 143 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

haps, has greater interest or importance for foreign
collectors than " blue-and-white." It deserves spe-

cially careful notice. Summing up what has already

been stated, the result is that, as an artistic product,

the manufacture commenced under the Ming dynasty
(1368-1644). The earliest examples, dating from
the Sung and Yuan eras, are inferior in respect of

pate and colour alike. Disfigured by discontinuities

or blisters in the glaze, clumsily finished, rudely

painted, the blue of impure tone without either
brilliancy or depth, and the decorative designs formal

if not archaic the painter's range of conception

not extending beyond scroll patterns, clumsy figure-

subjects, and diapers the ware was evidently destined

for common purposes of household life. As an object

of art it could not possibly rank with the <

Ting-yao>

the Kuan-yaoy the Chun-yao, the Tuan-tsu, or any of

their celebrated contemporaries. The potter, in

short, saw no inducement to expend strength upon

a manufacture that gave so little promise. What

chiefly deterred him is said by some authorities to

have been the want of a good pigment. They sup-

pose that the cobalt used by the first manufacturers of
blue-and-white was of native origin, and that, though

it was not incapable of producing a rich colour, the

difficulty of refining it exceeded the skill of the time.

According to this theory, the arrival of a purer
mineral from abroad, in the form of tribute, at the

beginning of the fifteenth century, first directed really

expert attention to decoration with blue under the
glaze. But the " Annals of the Sung Dynasty,"
quoted by Dr. Bushell, speak of the " Arabs bringing

to China, in the tenth century, among other presents

for the emperor, pieces of cobalt blue (Wu-ming-yi} y

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