Page 373 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

MONOCHROMATIC WARES

side of the specimen has designs, more or less elabor-

ate, in coloured enamels of the Famille Rose type.

The choicest pieces of all have designs incised in the

pate, with or without addition of coloured enamels.
These porcelains belong to the "

Imperial class."

Their extreme thinness and delicacy, as well as their

great cost, must have precluded their use except by

persons of large means.

YELLOW.

There is unanimity among Oriental and Occiden-

tal connoisseurs alike in assigning the first place

among monochromes to the grand reds of the Chiang-

tou-hung, the Pin-kwo-ts'ing, the Lang-yao, and the
Fan-hung glazes. But concerning the porcelain to
be ranked second, differences of opinion will of
course be found. Judging from the Illustrated
Catalogue of H'siang, the honour lay between yellow

and purple at the end of the sixteenth century. Of
the two, yellow is the more uncommon.

Yellow glazes were manufactured in times as re-
mote as the Tang dynasty (618907), but they did

not attain any reputation. The ware in which they

were employed Sheu-yao was produced in the
province of Kiang-nan. Subsequently, under the

Tuan dynasty (12601368), a stone-ware called Hu-
tien-yao, manufactured at a village of the same name

in the neighbourhood of Ching-te-chen, had impure
yellow glaze run over archaic designs deeply incised
in the pate. Surviving pieces of this ware indicate
that it belonged to a low grade, not suffering com-

parison with many other porcelains by contempo-
rary potters, which are said to have shown the grace

and elegance of fine Sung manufactures.

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