Page 294 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

Japan. There are also many specimens which can be traced
to families connected with China, or which are known to

have been made to order in that country.
While, however, the "India China" has on one hand

been attributed to Japan, it has on the other, and by a still
more singular hallucination, been ascribed to Lowestoft in

England.
There can be no doubt that there was a considerable

manufactory of porcelain at Lowestoft, but this was of the

usual English soft paste. The evidence of hard paste hav-

ing been made there is of the most unsatisfactory kind
;

chiefly the indistinct recollection of persons not acquainted
Awith the difference between hard and soft paste.
few

specimens of white Oriental porcelain may have been deco-

rated at Lowestoft, such as one belonging to Lady Charlotte

Schreiber but they must be rare, as most of the services of
;

such porcelain with European decorations seem to belong

to an earlier date. The supporters of the Lowestoft theory

(which is now, however, nearly exploded) must have been
embarrassed by the enormous number of specimens that

exist, and by the occasional occurrence of dated examples

too old for the so-called invention of hard paste at Lowes-
toft, such, for instance, as a Punch Bowl in this collection,

dated 1769, eight years earlier than the supposed time of

the invention. Why, moreover, should English painters,

in executing European designs, give in the minor details

those Chinese touches which at once reveal the Oriental

artists ? Had the subjects been Chinese such a proceeding

would be natural.

The result has been that a class of Oriental porcelain for-

merly little cared for, and possessing no great merit, has
been elevated in popular esteem, but it is to be hoped that

in time it may find its level.

Mr. Franks is apparently mistaken in his inference
as to the place of manufacture of some of these porce-

lains. The Kwang-tun (or Canton) potteries do not

seem to have produced any wares of the kind. Their
outcome, which will be spoken of later on, consisted

236