Page 315 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

MONOCHROMATIC GLAZES

downwards hard-paste porcelain takes its place among
the choicest keramist productions of China, the manu-

facture of soft-paste porcelain loses nothing of its
vogue. In the case of ware decorated with blue

sous couverte, it has been shown that though the
variety upon which, from the Hsuan-te (1424) era to

the close of the eighteenth century, the potter lav-
ished all the resources of his art the variety alone
held in really high esteem by Chinese virtuosi had
soft and nearly opaque pate, yet large quantities of
beautiful and attractive hard-paste porcelain were also

produced. So it is with the white Yung-lo ware

referred to by H'siang : soft-paste facsimiles of the
celebrated Ting-yao and its later representative, the

Shu-fu-yao, were successfully manufactured, but there

also made its appearance a hard-paste porcelain so

excellent and so far in advance of anything previously
seen in the same line, that it became and has since

remained the keramic feature of its era. This is the

white egg-shell porcelain familiar to American and

European virtuosi. Its great thinness and transparency

suggest the idea that the porcelain clay has been

entirely removed and the glazing material alone left.

It was accordingly termed To-tai-ki, or ware of which

the body (tat) had been removed Concerning
(to).

this remarkable effort of technical skill, the Tao-lu

contains the following information : " The thin

vases called To-tai-ki originated during the reign of

the Emperor Yung-lo. At that time people prized

vases which were comparatively thick and which are

to-day commonly known as Puan-to-tai, that is to say,

pieces of which the pate has been only half (puan)

removed. There is another variety, thin as bamboo-

paper, which is distinguished from the last by the

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