Page 160 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

the pieces to which they are applied. Unfortunately

the artist employed by H'siang to portray these speci-
mens did not think it worth while to give represen-
tations of the under surfaces, showing the nature of
the pate. Neither are his reproductions so accurate as

to convey an exact idea of the surface. Were it
known certainly either that the pate was reddish

brown, or that the glaze was crackled, these examples
could be confidently classed with the soft-paste variety.

The descriptions in the text indicate pretty clearly,

however, that they do belong to that category. Con-
cerning the tea-cup, which is from the collection of
H'siang himself, the author says that it was one of a
set of four, purchased from a collector at Wu-hsing

for ten taels. It will presently be seen that the value

put upon such specimens increased largely in later

years.

Among these six specimens there are two which

H'siang describes as having millet-like elevations in
the glaze. This feature, not without value in the
eyes of Chinese connoisseurs, appears to have been
produced by combined processes of insufflation and
immersion. Glazing material of a certain consis-

tency having been first blown over the biscuit through
a tube covered with very thin gauze, and having
been sun-dried for a time, the whole piece was after-
wards covered with a thinner glaze by dipping. Such
a strange and troublesome tour de force was only em-
ployed in exceptional cases and is not to be regarded

as an essential mark of excellence. The resulting

granulations, compared in China to millet seed, were

known in Japan as mashihada, or pear's rind. At
comparatively modern epochs they became larger,

until finally the surface of the glaze assumed a lumpy