Page 164 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

it scarcely ranks as high as the snowy wax-like white

of the choicest Kai-pien. The decoration should al-

ways be finely and strongly executed, and the closer

the blue approximates to the typical brilliancy and

purity of the Mohammedan mineral, the higher the
rank of the specimen. The glaze should be as

smooth as velvet to the touch, and the crackle must

not be so strong as to constitute a striking feature.

No large examples of soft-paste blue-and-white

Hsuan-yao or Cheng-h<wa-yao are known to exist.
" Illustrated Cata-
The p"ieces depicted in H'siang's
the collector may
logue are of diminutive size, and

safely regard them as typical.

Of the ordinary hard-paste blue-and-white Cheng-

hwa porcelain, there is not much to be said. It has

virtually no place in the Western collector's field, for

the only surviving specimens of it are a few plates,

bowls, censers, and so forth. It presents, however,

one interesting feature. In its decoration white de-

signs on a blue ground are found ; the fore-runners of

the celebrated " Hawthorn Pattern," so much prized

in Europe and America to-day. The style may have

existed before, but there is no evidence of the fact.

It makes its first known appearance on undoubtedly
genuine specimens af Cheng-hwa porcelain. Not yet,
indeed, had the idea been developed of the " Haw-

thorn Pattern" proper that is to say, branches and

blossoms of white plum in a blue field. What ap-

pears is a clouded blue ground with floral subjects,

birds and so forth, in white. Very soon, however,
produced, as Japanese
the typical " Hawthorn " was

evidence shows. Within forty years of the expira-

tion of the Cheng-hwa era, the potteries at Ching-te-

chen were visited by a Japanese expert, Gorodayu

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