Page 456 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

curing pieces of Chinese ware specially manufactured

to suit European taste. They had found this device

successful in the case of Japanese Imari porcelain,

and they gave orders to the Chinese potters whose
industry was then at the zenith of the revival inaugu-
rated in the reign of Kang-hsi (16621722) for
specimens decorated with the arms of France and
noble families. Shapes and models were also fur-
nished, and it is probable that many valued examples
preserved in European collections are of this hybrid

nature. Chinese writers also state that much of the

porcelain sold to foreign merchants was expressly

made with a view to its market, and was accordingly

called Tang-ki, i.e. ware of the outer seas, or ware
for exportation. Western traders, of course, con-
cerned themselves only to procure marketable pieces
in ample quantity. Nothing is more unlikely than

that they made any attempt to search for choice old
specimens, which, as is known from Chinese writers,
commanded a deterrent price in the Middle Kingdom
itself, and would certainly not have been appreciated
in Europe. At the time of the export of the Cam-
bron ware the factories at Ching-te-chen were in a

state of temporary decadence. Their productions
were comparatively coarse, depending rather upon
profusion of decoration and bright colours than upon
technical excellence. There can be little question

that the majority of the so-called Cambron ware was

comparatively inferior heavy porcelain decorated with
blue under the glaze and with red, gold, and green

enamels over it. One may indeed go so far as to

say that practically all the Chinese porcelain brought
to Europe up to the third quarter of the seventeenth
century was blue-and-white, or of the coarse enam-

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