Page 173 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

tially thick and solid, to which durable quality may

doubtless be ascribed the fact that many examples
survive. The quality of their blue decoration is

characteristic. Its colour is deep and full, but dis-

tinctly tinged with purple. Seldom does it approach

the brilliant pure tone of its celebrated predecessors.

The body of the piece in a marked degree partakes
also of that defect more or less common in all hard-

paste blue-and-white porcelains : its white, pervaded

by a tinge of blue, contrasts weakly with the colour

of the decoration. With regard to the designs
chosen by the potters, they became more elaborate

in proportion as the ware forfeited its claims to con-
sideration on account of brilliant colour and fine pate.

About this period the use of red under the glaze
began to be largely resorted to. Red and blue are
the only colours thus employed by the Chinese pot-
ters, the red varying from brilliant vermilion to

maroon and liver-colour. The date of their first

appearance in combination is not easy to determine.

Tradition and the evidence of existing specimens go

to show that the innovation may probably be ascribed

to the second half of the sixteenth century. The

fashion is supposed by certain commentators to have

owed something of its popularity to the failure of

choice cobalt supplies from foreign sources and native

mines alike, decoration in blue alone thus ceasing to

be sufficiently attractive. But such a theory is not

reconcilable with either the past or the subsequent

history of the ware. Red by itself had already been

used as a sub-glaze pigment during the Hsuan-te era

(14261436). Pieces of the choicest character were

thus decorated. Five of them are figured in the

" Illustrated " of H'siang, who speaks of
Catalogue

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