Page 279 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

EARLY SPECIMENS

This group of more primitive pieces may be ascribed to provinces of

China where the manufacture of porcelain or pottery has long been obso-
lete ; their exact date of production, also, remains a mooted question.
It may be stated that the first pieces of their kind which were received
from China were designated by native experts as Sung or Yuan porce-
lains, and nobody then in Europe or in America knew about such classic
Chinese objects. Since, however, they have been absorbed by museums
and figure in some of the most noted collections to-day, others of a simi-
lar type have followed. While such objects were made during the Ming
and also in later periods, it is very possible that these particular pieces
here under our view can be placed as belonging to the transitory era

between the Yuan and the Ming dynasty; and may have been inspired

by more ancient pieces of baked clay in their remote turn.

The examples of this class are always glazed on the biscuit {i.e., paste

baked in a kiln) before the colors are fixed by a second firing, and gen-
erally the biscuit shows through the glaze here and there in various ways,
according to thickness of glaze, accident or intention, and sometimes
owing to the disintegration of the glaze itself or the prevailing conditions
of usage ; but the paste shows in such objects to have less kaolm than

later porcelain, or the porcelain used for other types.

The embellishments, which are modeled in low relief, perforated, or
engraved, afford outlines for the different enamel colors, among which
may be particularly noted a deep lapis-blue, shading into purple or violet

often resembling the color of plum-skin, or aubergine, amber-yellow, and

a turquoise color varying in tints with epochs of production. The vitre-

ous green is generally used for interior glazing; on late pieces, however,

this color appears in the embellishment of the exterior.

These specimens possess additional interest by reason of the fact that
they enable us, at this period, to picture to ourselves what some of the

early porcelains or potteries were like.

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