Page 194 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

CHINESE PORCELAIN.
146
Chinese writers refer to white plates with blue dragons, as
made for one of the Yuan
also blue flowers, being emperors
" "
(1279-1368), the last dynasty before the Ming ; but the first
record we have of blue and white in England is of some bowls
given to Sir Thomas Trenchard, in 1506, by Philip of Austria.
Blue and white has been esteemed
porcelain long greatly
in Holland, into which were
country large quantities imported
during the latter part of the seventeenth and the whole of the
where it was in the
eighteenth century, copied glazed pottery
made at Delft. In France, the fashion seems always to have
inclined more to the polychrome classes, and the same may be
said of At times the markets were so
England. European
overstocked with blue and white, that to make it saleable it
had to be and which colours
repainted with red, green, yellow,
were burnt in, so that in many cases, what evidently were
originally very fine pieces, have been hopelessly ruined ; in
fact, this repainting seems to have been a regular business in
England, if not in Holland, as also elsewhere.
" "
In blue and white, as in most other articles, the best is
a considered that the
question of taste, but it is generally purer
the and the blue, the better the 5
paste piece. Many collectors,
however, prefer the ]:>orcelain to be somewhat off colour, think-
ing that with a greenish tint to be of greater age than the pure
"
white. at this shade is due to the
Marryat, p. 393, says
"
employment of lime ; and Gutzlaff (vol. i. p. 88) tells us Kaou-
lin is of a whitish, Pe-tun-tsze of a
greenish cast of colour,
which mav have something to do with it. The blue varies
from grey, or at times almost black, to pretty nearly a purple.
The purer the cobalt, the better the blue; the grey shades
are owing to the presence of nickel or iron, and purple to that
of manganese.
During the Ming dynasty there seems to have been great
" A of blue and
specimen white, to be considered of the very finest quality,
should possess live points, indicated by the thumb and four fingers of the hand
as a reminder—
acting
1. Blue to bo of the finest colour.
2. White to be ditto.
Drawing perfectly shading.
.'!. to be clean and line in outline and
4. Shape t<> be elegant in form.
5. Glaze to be brilliant and uninjured.
— T. J. L.
Such a specimen means money.