Page 235 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

PEACH BLOOM. 361

to have been on but the colour seems
appears put by hatching,
to have fused in the fire, and now mixed with
green entirely
hides the Where the
porcelain. green came from there is nothing
to show. The red is of a bright pinky hue, in some lights almost
claret-coloured, without russet spots, while the green is of a
celadon shade. Below the bat, on what is intended to
probably
a No. 49), in the middle of a of
represent peach (see ground
there is an of dull
bright transparent pink, egg-shaped patch
green which also seems to have fused and run down a little
semicircular groove moulded in the china, probably to give the
contour of a ; at the shows the
peach places pink through green.
The " russet spots " are chiefly on the white porcelain, and
seem to consist, when of any size, of pink rings with green
centres. On the middle bulb the peach bloom is of the usual
without so that .we have three kinds
type, green, exemplified
in this one
piece.
In the present instance, the brush and the. fire seem to have
worked to about the desired effect, the
together bring colouring
is far too to be due to chance transmutation in
evenly placed
the furnace ; but we must remember that, by the end of the
reign of Kang-he, the Chinese had obtained control over most
of the colours and could for their in
protean arrange mingling
the oven. Speaking of this transmutation, Pere d'Entrecolles
"
says, the workmen intended to make vessels of brown-red, but
a hundred were this which I am
pieces entirely lost, and
of came out of the furnace like a kind of If
speaking agate.
would run the risk and of various
they expense experiments
they might at length discover the art of making constantly
what chance has once in the same manner as
produced, they
have learnt to make the shining black china, called U-king ;
to which they were excited by such another caprice of the
furnace." We see from this that, once the fire had shown what
was possible, it was a mere matter of time and money to find
out the secret.
The pink shade referred to here must not be confused with
the rose enamel of the next two This
reigns. transparent pink
came from the rose enamel from
glaze copper, gold.
Peach bloom, like sang de boeuf, is the result of the grand
feu and belongs to the celadon class, and appears on pieces
decorated under the
glaze.

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