Page 370 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

decorative agents, it is scarcely possible to speak too

highly. This is the beautiful enamel found on many
"
of the Imperial Porcelains" (Tu-chi, or Kuan-yao}

of the best periods of the present dynasty, where it

completely covers whatever portions of the surface

are not occupied by floral designs in brilliant colours

green, yellow, blue, purple, black, and white. In

the whole range of keramic chefs-d'ceuvre there are

not to be found any finer examples of decoration in

vitrifiable enamels. But the choicest and most charm-

ing conception worked out by the aid of the Tsao-
hung red is of the type shown in a Hsuan-te censer
of H'siang's Illustrated Catalogue, concerning which

the author says that " the upper two-thirds of the
body and the handles are covered with a deep red
glaze of rosy-dawn tint, the lower part enamelled
white, pure as driven snow, the two colours mingling
in a curved line dazzling the eyes." Similar pieces,

though apparently few and far between, were manu-

factured by the Katig-Ast, Tung-ching, and Chien-lung

experts. They are, indeed, improvements upon

H'siang's specimen, for the white surface, instead of

being separated from the red simply by a curved line,

is covered with wave-pattern engraved in the pate

with such delicacy that the superincumbent glaze is

as smooth as velvet the crests of the waves curling

up into the brilliant red above. It is probable that

in H'siang's censer the red was painted directly on the

pdte, a method that would have added largely to its

depth and brilliancy. But the Tsing reproductions

of this fine type gain in artistic effect what they lose

in grandeur of tone.

The second red among those applied to porcelain
"
already stoved, is the Ten-chi-hung, or Red."
Rouge

300