Page 90 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

i6 CHINESE ART.
unctuous and infusible element, which gives plasticity to the paste,
and the felspathic stone, or petuntse, which is fusible at a high
temperature, and gives transparency to the porcelain. Of the
two Chinese names, which have become classical since they were
adopted in the dictionary of the French Academy, kaolin is the name
of a locality near Chingtechen where the best porcelain earth is
mined, petuntse, literally " white briquettes," refers to the shape
in which the finely pulverised porcelain stone is brought to the
potteries, after it has been submitted to the preliminary processes
of pounding and decantation. The felspathic stone from Ch'i-
mcn-hsien, in the province of Kiangsu, has been chemically analysed
by Ebelmen, who describes it as a white compact rock of slightly
grayish tinge, occurring in large fragments, covered with manganese
oxide in dendrites, and having crystals of quartz imbedded in
the mass, which fuses completely into a white enamel under the
blowpipe.
In actual practice many other materials, such as powdered
quartz and crystallised sands, for example, are added to the above
two essential ingredients in the preparation of the body of Chinese
porcelain, which varies very widely in composition. A special
paste made of huang tun, or " yellow bricks," derived from a very
tough compact rock, pounded in larger water-mills, is used for
coarser ware, and is said to be indispensable for the proper develop-
ment of some of the single-coloured glazes of the high fire.
The glaze yu, of Chinese porcelain, is made of the same felspathic
rock that is used in the composition of the body, the best pieces of
petuntse being reserved for the glaze, selected for their uniform
greenish tone, especially when veined with dendrites like leaves of
the arbor-vita. This is mixed with lime, prepared by repeated
combustion of gray limestone, piled in alternate layers with ferns
and brushwood cut from the mountain side. The action of the
lime is to increase the fusibility of the felspathic stone. The finest
petuntse, called yu kuo or "glaze essence," and the purified lime,
called lien hui, separately made with the addition of water into