Page 291 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

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GLOSSARY

aie perhaps the most frequently seen ; each characterized by simplicity and by a greater
shade having its o\vn svinbolical meaning, al- degree of uniformity.
though the huAng-lung. or "yellow dragon,"
TTie varieties of the center or muffle-fire colors
Asis the most honored of the series or tribe. have played probably as importjint a part in the
an emblem of majesty its name is a euphemism high reputation gained by Chinese porcelains
as have the originality and harmony of the de-
for that of the Emperors of China and Japan signs or forms.
;
ENGOBE. See Slip Decoration.
the Imperial throne (lung-'wei) becoming the European Pattern. The influential position
" dragon-seat," the face of the ruler {lung-yen),
the " dragon countenance." occupied by the Jesuits was maintained chiefly
by their high attainments in the sciences and as
DRAGON'S-EYE Fruit (" Lung-yen "), NepM- members of the Board of Astronomy dovvu to
81 1 4. Contemporaneously with this, they ex-
ium LongiLnum. ercised considerable influence upon other matters
not directly connected with the studies for which
EGG-SHELL (" t'o-t'ai '), so called from its being they were famous. Through them was brought
about a style of decoration on porcelain, for the
supposed to be no thicker than the shell of an Palace and for general use, that was purely
egg. These fragile pieces are made usually in European in its character, going so far as to re-
" hard paste " and of the purest materials, care- produce objects from European capitals as well
fully prepared and manipulated through every as copying the dress and scenes of Europeem
stage, from the wet clay to the ba icing and the
final glazing and paiinting. in the history of life.

King-te-chen we find that a quasi egg-shell On certain Ch'ien-lung, Chia-ching, emd
(known as " Han P"i ") was produced during
the Lung-lo period. Ming wnters refer to their Tao-kuang porcelain a decided tendency is
porcelain as being made as " thin as paper shown toward Western detail ; in some pieces
may be noted a marked resemblance to ara-
and called " t'o-t'ai," or bodiless ; but allow- besques and foliated ornamentation, evidently
ance must be made for their flowery Eastern derived from illuminated missals and due largely
to the influence of the missionaries and their
style of writing. schools. Besides these, the Imperial household
was greatly impressed with the enamels of
The most notable egg-shell to-day is the Limoges, snuff-boxes, and European watches
" famille-verte " type, made under the Emperor which came to China from France, especially
during Yung-cheng's reign, so that several
K'jmg-hsi, followed by the esteemed " famille- Jesuit brothers were commissioned to make
rose " egg-shell porcelain of Yung-chien and European designs for the decoration of porce-
Ch'ien-lung. True egg-shell presents great dif- lain, and every object not perfect was rejected
ficulries in its manufacture, and requires extraor- by the superintendent of the Imperial factory.
dinary dexterity on the part of the ceramist
artists to produce it perfectly. Many of these gradually passed into other

Enamel, a term applied to colored glazes em- hands. Possessing novelty to the Chinese mind
and interest from the fact that they were ap-
ployed in painting on porcelain, as well as to the preciated at court, these objects would serve
opaque white coating that is sometimes spread as models in the decoration of ordinary ware,
over a coarser qucJity of porcelain, and used and thus account for the decadence of the earlier
especially upon large pieces. Mongolian character on such objects.

In technology the term is exclusively reserved FAMILLE Rose, a term given by Jacquemart
to enamel painting over the glaze. to objects in which the rose-color may dominate

The Chinese style of painting with these the over-glaze decoration.
enamel colors differs entirely from the European
especially is this so in older specimens, where FaMILLE VEIRTE, a term applied by Jacquemart

the forms are not modeled, and only strokes lo a class of over-glaze decoration in which
of black or darker shades define the outlines. green enamels are dominant.

The colors, laid on in flat tints, are stronger

and more decorative than in European pro-
ducts, and a lightness of shades gives a pecul-
iarity which makes them approach nearer than
any other to the vitrified substances known as
encunels. Chinese porcelains are therefore

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