Page 273 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

gested as a device to replace excellence of pate and
glaze. Sometimes, however, it is combined with
decoration of the most elaborate and minute descrip-

tion.

The bottoms QiTung-ching and Chlen-lung enamelled

porcelains are always carefully finished on the wheel
and glazed. Their pate is fine and pure, but, in later
specimens, seems a little more chalky and porous
than Kang-hsi biscuit. Year-marks in seal-character

are used in the great majority of cases. It may be

noted also that the habit of gilding the rim of a
piece does not appear to have been practised before
the Chien-lung era, and even then was seldom resorted

to in the case of very choice specimens. The custom
became common in proportion as the potter developed

a tendency to rely on decorative profusion rather than
on technical excellence. Wares with polychromatic
decoration manufactured during the present century
are, for the most part, thus distinguished.

Special reference must be made to a very lovely
and efFective method of using egg-shell porcelain of

the hard-paste type, namely, in the manufacture of
lamp-shades or lamp-globes. Specimens of that na-
ture were comparatively rare, their use being, of
course, limited to houses of very wealthy persons.

Numbers were found in the celebrated Summer Pal-

ace, at Yuen-min-yuen, which was rifled of its treas-
ures and burned to the ground by the French and
English invaders of China forty years ago. These
choice examples of the potter's skill seem to have
been ruthlessly destroyed by the ignorant soldiery.
Occasionally, however, a similar piece may be pro-

cured from one of the great dealers in Peking. The

biscuit is as thin as glass and the decoration is elabo-

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