Page 181 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

tone. It may, in short, be stated with regard to all
the decorated porcelains dating from the final reigns

of the Ming dynasty that they are distinguished by
Astrength of colour.
brief acquaintance with gen-

uine specimens enables the amateur to recognise these

porcelains with tolerable certainty, for in no era, pre-

vious or subsequent, did the potter succeed in impart-

ing to his sous-cou'verte blue a more distinctly encaustic

character. It seems as though the colour were verita-

bly burned into the pate, and since the glaze is excep-
tionally solid and lustrous, the ultimate effect is one

of softness and strength very admirably combined.

For purposes of room decoration in Western houses

the blue-and-white porcelains of Lung-ching and

Wan-H possess special merits, since they adapt them-

selves to almost any situation. In order to bring out

the noble glow and richness of Kang-hsi Hawthorns

it is essential that they be placed in a full clear light :

the more directly the sun strikes on them, the greater

the brilliancy, glow, and warmth of their effect. The

delicate richness of fine Kang-hsi and Tung-ching

pieces, though not of the Hawthorn class, are scarcely

less dependent on the light they receive. But the

Lung-ching and Wan-li blues stand effectively in any
nook or corner: even in a sombre atmosphere their

decorative strength is not to be subdued.

In the Tao-lu the name of a celebrated keramist,

Tsui, is recorded as having flourished in the second

Hehalf of the sixteenth century. is said to have

excelled in imitating the blue-and-white soft-paste

porcelain of the Hsuan-te and Cheng-hwa eras. His
fidelity as a copyist extended, of course, to the marks

on his originals. Few as are the names of Chinese

keramic experts remembered by posterity, fewer still

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