Page 309 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

PORCELAIN DECORATED

attractive. In appraising their merit the amateur has

to consider before everything purity of colour, rich-

ness of glaze, and careful technique. Any muddiness

in the tone of the enamels or roughness of surface is

a distinct mark of inferiority, and the same may be

said of clumsy technique, though the collector must

not look for a very high degree of finish in any ware
of this class. -

It will thus be seen that though both porcelain

and "fTahirenecee-coarleouriencdl"udewdareb,y some connoisseurs in
the two are essentially
the

different in appearance. The porcelain, in fact, re-

ally belongs to the Famille Verte, from typical exam-

ples of which it is only distinguished by paucity of

coloured enamels. The term Famille Verte, as already

explained, is of European origin : it has no existence

in China. The amateurs of the Middle Kingdom

recognise the distinctions of Wu-tsai and San-tsai (five

colours and three colours), but both types of ware
" Green Fam-
may not improperly be included in the
by nomenclature.
" those who prefer the latter

ily

Porcelain of the San-tsai variety was manufactured at

Ching-te-cheng, but the faience or stone-ware men-

tioned above, came from kilns in the neighbourhood

of Peking, in the province of Shansi. According to

the records, its manufacture in the latter district com-

menced in the seventh century, but nothing is ac-
curately known about the products of so remote a
date. Not until the close of the Tuan, or opening

years of the Ming, dynasty is there anything upon

which a verdict may be founded, and even then the

specimens are of comparatively insignificant charac-

Ater. limited number of these are preserved in

Japan where they have always been higly valued,

247