Page 145 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

FAMILLE NOIRE.
327
width of of an inch, but it is black into
j^th always turning
white In and beaker vases, where
through gray. my potiches
the black finishes on the edge in this way, it deteriorates into
brown, and turns into white through a Vandyke brown,
that the black the two is of a different
showing upon types
But the of vases has as intense a black
pigment. body my
effect as that upon the Kien-lung bottle. This last is of a
beautiful and fine and is much admired
porcelain composition,
by artists.
"
In Home last winter I was shown, by a celebrated
painter,
a black bottle with all over
under-glaze chrysanthemums it,
about 11 inches white within the but I did not
high lip
examine the foot to see if it were marked.
"
It resembled and was a brilliant
my potiches, piece.
"Of course this imitates black but no
type lacquer,
lacquer is capable of the brilliancy of these specimens of
22
porcelain.
" ' '
The two classes of black over and under the
glaze
should be not only kept distinct, but also the divisions of those
in the latter, where one division, as
classes, especially repre-
sented and beaker vases, is so intended
by my potiches plainly
to imitate black some
lacquer work, produced by pigment
deteriorating into Vandyke brown, and the other division,
doubtless to resemble a block of
designed jet, produced by
absolute black.
"The first division is doubtless of about the Khang-hy
period, and the last of the later date of Kien-lung, being so
marked. As for the are a
over-glaze blacks, they distinctly
'
division of the Old Greens,' and I have never seen or heard of
such wares bearing any other decoration than the flowered
designs common to the old greens. It is, however, a fact that
there are in existence statuettes finished to their clothes
(as
and perhaps their stands) in this over-glaze black, but I rack
my brains in vain to remember where I have seen them. They
would be of the same date as the vases, and are
probably
very uncommon. I think that probably I have seen them
in one of the private houses where I have visited at the
Hague.
22
These black porcelains, called mirror
blacks, are by no means so costly
as those of the greenish black T. J. L.
type.
VOL. II. E 2