Page 388 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

eras, and known as Tueh-pai, or blanc-de-lune. These
vary slightly in tint. The surface of the best exam-

ples shows exceedingly fine dappling so microscopic

as to be scarcely perceptible apparently produced

by the process of insufflation. The biscuit is thick

and solid, but white and close-grained. Later speci-
mens are marked by impurity of colour and more or

less faulty technique ; their lilac assumes a dusky
shade, their pate is comparatively coarse, and their

glaze is often disfigured by pitting or blisters. The

potters of the Taou-kwang and later eras were fond

of using this impure lilac glaze as a field for designs

generally lions playing with balls in maroon,
brown, and black.

Lapis blue monochromes are among the rarest and

choicest of the blue family. Their intense, brilliant
colour justifies the esteem in which they were held.

They were undoubtedly manufactured with success

by the later Ming keramists, but the best examples
familiar to Western collectors are from the Kang-hsi,
Tung-ching, and Chun-lung kilns. Not infrequently

they have decorative designs dragons, phoenixes,
and so forth finely engraved under the paste, and

sometimes the monochrome is interrupted by yellow-

ish white spots or veins, as though the potter had set

himself expressly to imitate lapis lazuli. The best

specimens have close-grained, white porcelain pdtey
but even in pieces dating as far back as the close of

the eighteenth century comparatively coarse brown

biscuit is occasionally found.

Mazarin blue is the commonest monochrome of

this family. With regard to period the same remarks
apply to it as to Lapis blue. The points of excel-

lence are velvet-like lustre of surface, depth and

3*4