Page 203 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

such pieces as chefs-d'cenvre. They were manufac-
tured in the Ming dynasty as well as in the Kang-hsi
period, for among the items of the imperial requisition

of the Wan-li reign the following is found

Tea-diners with white flowers on blue ground, and white
dragons coiling through the flowers of the four seasons.

At the Ching-te-chen factories during the Kang-
hsi and two succeeding eras there was produced a

porcelain which may be classed mid-way between

the ordinary hard-paste ware and the soft-paste Kai-
pien-yao. It possesses all the fine qualities of the
latter, thinness of biscuit, milky whiteness of glaze,
brilliancy of blue colour and artistic delicacy of deco-
rative design. But it is without crackle, and the
absence of this feature certainly deprives it of the

peculiar wax-like aspect that adds so much to

the charms of the Kai-pien-yao. This variety of
blue-and-white porcelain is not specially distinguished

by name in China, but it takes a high place in the
esteem of Chinese connoisseurs. The collector rec-

ognises it easily by its lightness, thinness and the pure
white of its body, this last feature constituting the
chief distinction between it and hard-paste egg-shell

porcelain.

Undoubtedly the Kang-hsi hard-paste porcelains,
considered from the point of view of decorative
effect, deserve the favour they have found with

Western collectors. They belong to a grade of

technical and artistic achievement below that of

the Kai-pien-yao, but they have the practical advan-
tages of being procurable in incomparably greater

numbers at less cost and of much more imposing

size. Moreover, it appears to be as far beyond the