Page 286 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

A CATALOGUE OF CHINESE PORCELAINS

No. 83

Massive Jar, oviform, reticulated and of heavy Sung paste, with its own

porcelain pedestal, glazed partly in purple, with turquoise and amber-
yellow trimming, *' sur biscuit," which shows through the edges of
ornamentation and at the foot, with less kaolin than later porcelain.

The outer casing, which is superposed on an interior vase of solid form, presents both

raised and incised ornamentation, that is most vigorously modeled and undercut in the
paste ; the design, which is archmc emd rudimentary in parts, presents the eight (Pa-sien)
immortals, or legendary beings, surrounded by conventionalized clouds, and ornate per-

forations.

The figures are partly glazed in deep purple, while their heads and hemds are re-

served in the biscuit form.

A bordering in scalloped form, and with openwork inclosing symbols and birds, is

clearly defined by its foliations in turquoise, finished at each upper point with a rosette,
and at the lowest points with tasseled pendants that sustain finely modeled rudimentary
masks of demons, against a shell-like shield ; between the tassel and mask the cords
hold alternately an intaglio ornament and a button.

The base is embellished by a conventional wave border in turquoise-blue, and the
neck is finished by a fringed bordering, writh the rim glazed in purplish-blue, and the

interior glazed in a light mottled turquoise.

The foot is in biscuit and shows the paste of gritty pottery texture.
The pedestal is in the form of a raised stand with incisions through the body, glazed

in dark blue and turquoise, with bordering in yellow matching the vase.
Early Sung (960-1259).^

Height of vase, I 1 V2 inches.
Diameter at base, 8 inches.

' Descriptions of " Chiin-chou " pottery of the or sandy paste also corresponds with the records
Sung dynasty, quoted in the " T'ao-shuo," or
treatise on pottery (an early native work), would of several authorities.
This example is certainly one of the oldest of
lead one to believe that this example could easily
have come from those kilns (eleventh to thirteenth its class that has come before me. The paste differs
from Ming specimens or Ming reproductions of
centuries), as the color of "prune-skins," or "purple- older types, and the jar may well be classed as of
brovsTi," or a " purple-like ink," is referred to, as
—an early era in the Sung dynasty. J. G.
well as a green called " parrot-green." The gritty

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