Page 394 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

sionally showed accidental fissures. Dismissing this
variety, therefore, as unworthy of further attention,
it remains to notice three principal kinds of choice

e

green; namely, apple green (Pin-k wo-ts'ing] 9 pea-
cock green (Kang-tsiao-ts'ing), and cucumber-rind

green (Kwa-pi-lu] .
It has already been explained that the term Pin-

kwo-tsing (green of the water-shield) is applied by
the Chinese to a ware of which the dominant colour

is generally red. But the same term has come to be
"
used of a green monochrome arbitrarily called apple

" This ware owes its

green by foreign collectors.

beauty to purity and delicacy rather than to richness.
It invariably has large crackle, of the " "

starred-ice

type, and without such crackle would lose much of

its charm. The inside of good specimens has thick,
"
creamy white glaze, which also is craquele. Apple
"
has the merit of being a couleur de grandfeu ;
green

that is to say, the colour is incorporated with the

glaze and developed at the full temperature of the

porcelain kiln. No mention is made of this ware

among the noted productions of the Ming potters.

The fine specimens by which it is now known date

from one of the three great periods of the present

dynasty, Kang-hsi, Toung-ching and Chien-lungt but

many passable pieces were manufactured during the

first half of the nineteenth century.

The tint of the peacock green is well described by

its name : it is the full, dark, glowing colour seen on

the neck and back feathers of the peacock. This

variety differs essentially from apple green in being

a colour developed at the low temperature of the

decorator's furnace. It ranks, in fact, with turquoise

blue or king-fisher blue for a dark kind of

320