Page 334 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

the specimens are perfectly plain, relying entirely on

the charms of their glaze. Others have incised

designs, generally very sketchy in character and
;

others, again, have decoration in high relief, such as

branches of plum, dragons, phoenixes, and so forth.

The last variety is the commonest and least valuable,

though some pieces of it possess merit. Perhaps the

most beautiful and rarest kind is that in which the

usually faint pink of the glaze deepens into a distinct

tone of rose. The engraved designs, though often

indistinct, were never intended to be viewed by trans-

mitted light, as was frequently the case with the

hard-paste egg-shell porcelains of Ching-te-chen.

Libation-cups, cylindrical vases, and tripod censers

were favourite forms with the Te-hwa potters, but

they enjoyed high reputation as modellers of figures

of the goddess Kwan-yin and other Buddhist divinities,

as well as of seals with handles shaped into the Dog

of Fo, the Kylin, and similar mythical monsters. In
" Most of the
the Tao-lu it is said of the factory :

cups and bowls manufactured there have their edges

slightly turned back. The ware is called Pai-tzu, or

white porcelain. It has great lustre and polish, but

is very thick. Some specimens, however, are thin.

The statuettes of Buddha are extremely beautiful. It

is at Te-hwa that we find at present the ware called

Chien-yao, but it bears no resemblance to the ancient

ware of the same name." Chien-yao is, in fact, the

name by which Ivory-white porcelain is known to-

day in China. It will be remembered that the same

term, Chien-yao, was originally applied to one of the

most remarkable wares of the Sung Dynasty, the

characteristic variety of which had lustrous black

glaze with silver lines. No two keramic productions

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