Page 239 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

enamels are strictly subordinated to the general design,

which feature must be taken as essentially character-

istic of all the Ming masterpieces. In the Tao-lu it is
"
stated : the Hsuan-te era there were
During

among the manufactures white tea-cups, brilliant as
On the
jade. inside were painted flowers, in subdued
colours " sous couverte), " and above these a tiny

(blue

dragon and a phoenix were traced in enamels with

extreme delicacy. Beneath the flowers the year-mark

was engraved, Ta-Ming Hsuan-te nien chl. The sur-

face of these cups was granulated like the flesh of a

fowl or the skin of an orange. . . . There was no

article of Hsuan-te porcelain that was not charming.

The small specimens wrere the most remarkable from

an artistic point of view. The Ming porcelains shone

with greater eclat at this epoch." " The reader will
observe that "
the term porcelain is here properly

used not soft-paste porcelain, but hard, fine ware,

with white biscuit and clear timbre.

It will easily be conceived that among the enam-
elled porcelains of the early Ming potters, many
pieces of a common, coarse type were included. Evi-

dence of an indirect nature is furnished with regard
to these by the Tao-lu, which says that white porce-
lain was manufactured in the Hsuan-te kilns for the

purpose of subsequently receiving decoration in

colours over the glaze, but that such ware was not

classed among choice products. From the few ex-
now surviving, this " common
amples "

porcelain

seems to have had brilliant, but comparatively sparse

and formal decoration in red, green, and gold, with

occasional addition of blue under the glaze.

M. du Sartel, in his work "La Porcelaine de Chine,"

maintains that the process of enamel decoration over

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