Page 210 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

124 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

The colour flowing down has left an even white band round the

mouth, and has settled in thick coagulations on the flat parts of

the shoulders and again above the base ; but in spite of its apparent
fluidity the glaze has stopped in an even line without overrunning

the base. The glaze under the base is of pale buff tone and crackled,

and a careful examination of the surface generally shows that a

faint crackle extends over the whole piece. The glaze, moreover, is
full of minute bubbles and consequently much pinholed, and the

red colour has the appearance of lying on the body in a dust of

minute particles which the glaze has dragged downward in its flow

and spread out in a continuous mass, but where the colour and the

glaze have run thick the particles reappear in the form of a distinct

mottling or dappling.

To obtain the best colour from the copper oxide in this glaze it

was necessary to regulate the firing to a nicety, the margin between

success and failure being exceedingly small. Naturally, too, the

results varied widely in quality and tone ; but the permanent

characteristics of the K'ang Hsi sang de bceuf are (1) a brilliant red
varying in depth and sometimes entirely lost in places, ^ but always

red and without any of the grey or grey blue streaks which emerge

on the flambe red and the modern imitations of the sang de bceuf

(2) the faint crackle of the glaze (3) the stopping of the glaze at
;

the foot rim. The colour of the glaze under the base and in the

interior of vases varied from green or buff crackle to plain white.

The secret of this glaze, which Pere d'Entrecolles tells us was care-

fully guarded, seems to have been lost altogether about the end of

the K'ang Hsi period. Later attempts to obtain the same effects,

though often successful in producing large areas of brilliant red,

are usually more or less streaked with alien tints such as grey or

bluish grey, and are almost invariably marred by the inability of

the later potters to control the flow of the glaze which overruns

the foot rim and consequently has to be ground off. But it is

highly probable that the modern potter will yet surmount these

difficulties, and I have actually seen a large bowl of modern make

in which the ox-blood red was successfully achieved on the exterior

(the interior was relatively poor), and the flow of the glaze had

been stopped along the foot rim except in one or two small places

^ There is a very beautiful glaze effect known as " ashes of roses," which seems
to be a partially fired-out sang de bceuf. It is a crackled glaze, translucent, and lightly
tinged with a copper red which verges on maroon.