Page 111 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

LE COMTE.
313

to a amount of for the
city supply large cheap crockery
use of the thousands that lived in or about the domain.
Imperial
If not at this at least later on, the Chinese
particular period,
could turn out the most beautiful yellow, as proved by the
lovely mustard crackle and other such pieces still to be met
with, to say nothing of the yellow flowers on the plates of
the two following reigns. The worthy father tells us he had
"
never seen any very vivid red," but that, like the yellow, was
to come later.
If, as we know from their own writers, he is wrong in saying
they never used moulds, he was at least right in stating that
the workmen then were as good as of old, and that the Chinese
valued their ancient porcelain, not because it was better than
the new, but because it was old. It is to
simply interesting
note that even in this the did not
reign palace pay liberally,
and this may, in fact, account for so many fine pieces being
unmarked, the best workmen perhaps finding the best pay
outside of the Imperial factory.
The European merchant he is very severe upon, and no
doubt justly so, but he says fine works could be had by people
who did not and from first to last the
spare expense, European
merchant has not done with a lot of rubbish he
badly. Along
has secured the finest productions of King-te-chin, as our
museums and those of America, to say nothing of private
collections, can testify to ; but these, no doubt, were acquired at
a later date as with their Chinese owners.
parted by
What he about
says glaze ageing is certainly true; in
China and Japan to this day experts judge chiefly by the
and the condition of the It cannot be said that
paste glaze.
they are invariably right, for, as in the case of Ming eggshell,
seem to allow tradition at times to their better
they outweigh
but all doubt the and the are
judgment, beyond paste glaze
the best tests in deciding as to the age of any piece. With
"
regard to the colour of the interior material," very many
and almost when of
pieces, always large size, are made of some
coarse material more or less thinly coated with porcelain, while
" "
others, like eggshell, are what the Chinese call bodiless
"
or boneless," that is, made throughout of porcelain.
By the reference to M. Constance we see that the falling
off in at the end of the Ming dynasty had been noticed
quality