Page 53 - J. P Morgan Collection of Chinese Art and Porcelain

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

the test that it cannot be scratched by a knife. They
do not lay so much stress on the whiteness of the paste,

nor on its translucency, so that some of the pieces may
fail in these two points when the fabric is coarse; and

yet it would be difficult to separate them from the
porcelain class. The paste of the ordinary ware, even
at Ching-te-chen, is composed of more heterogeneous
materials than that fabricated at European factor-

ies, and may even be reduced in some cases to a mere

layer of true porcelain earths (kaolin and petuntse)
plastered over a substratum of yellowish gray clay.
The Chinese always separate, on the other hand, dark-
colored stonewares, like the reddish-yellow ware

made at Yi-hsing, in the province of Kiangsu, known
to us by the Portuguese name of boccaro, or the dense
brown refractory stoneware of archaic look, produced

at Yang-chiang, in the southern part of the province
of Kwangtung, which is coated with colored enamels,

and is often put in our collections among the mono-
chrome porcelains.

Some typical specimens of Kuang yao, as this last

stoneware is called, are exhibited in Case XXXVI, e.g..

No. 883, which is the base of a Kuang yao vase of
archaic aspect, cut down; No. 886, an old vase worked

in salient relief, and covered with purple mottling

glazes of finely crackled texture, the iron-gray paste

of which is seen under the foot; and No. 893, a charac-
teristic form invested with a grayish celadon glaze,
which has partly peeled off from the foliated rim, dis-

closing the dark-colored paste underneath. Pot-

ters' marks are occasionally found stamped in the
paste under the pieces from these kilns.

The Yi-hsing yao has also no pretension to figure

amongst porcelain, although a rare tea-pot may have
come out of the kiln, as we are told, with transparent
sides, as a freak of the fire. No examples of this red

and buff-colored faience are in the Morgan Collection,

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