Page 398 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

found : a thin glaze having the sheen of metal, its

surface often showing iridescent hues of dark green

or blue, and a more solid glaze of noir-mat type.

The "mirror black" is happily named, being a deep,

soft colour, glossy, polished, and reflecting images

like a mirror. M. d'Entrecolles, speaking of mirror
" This black is produced by dipping
black, says :

the porcelain in a liquid mixture of prepared azure.

It is not essential that the best blue should be em-

ployed, but it should be a little thick, and it must be

mixed with glazing material obtained from powdered
petrosilex, to which is added " dead-leaf" glaze with

some lime and fern ashes. No other glaze is applied.

In stoving this species of ware, it must be placed in

the middle of the kiln and not where the tempera-

ture is highest." This process would evidently have

given a pure black monochrome, and in point of

fact many beautiful specimens of perfectly uniform,

glossy black porcelain were thus produced during the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But M. d'En-

trecolles' description tells nothing of a feature that

distinguishes the choicest variety of mirror black,

namely, the addition of golden speckles. Strictly

speaking, such ware should not be classed with mono-

chromes, but the dust of gold speckles floating in the

glaze is so fine that it conveys an impression of sheen

and softness rather than of colour. Examples of this

charming ware are very rare. Like the blue-and-

white Kai-pien-yao and several of the most prized

monochromes, their pate, is seldom pure white porce-

lain, but close-grained, reddish stone-ware. This

is an interesting point for the connoisseur and it
;

may be supplemented by saying that generally in the

choicest pieces of mirror black neither the bottom

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