Page 465 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

Chapter XIV

MANUFACTURING PROCESSES

questions of the preparation of pate and

1 glazing material by Chinese potters, of the

application of the glaze and of the mode

of selecting and employing colouring mat-

ter, though investigated from time to time by Euro-

peans residing in China, are still more or less obscure.

It would be useless, therefore, to attempt to enter

into the minutias of these matters. Brief reference

may be made, however, to processes of which a gen-

eral knowledge has been acquired ; namely, those
followed at the Ching-te-chen factories in the times

of their great prosperity ; that is to say, during the
reigns of Kang-Astt Yung-ching, and Chieng-lung, the

period comprised between 1661 and 1795. Whether
these processes differed from those in vogue during

the Ming dynasty, and if so, in what the difference

consisted, there are unfortunately no means of de-

termining. But it may reasonably be assumed that

the differences were not considerable, for certainly in

many directions the achievements of the Ming pot-

ters were at least equal to those of their successors in

the Tsing dynasty. Information with respect to these
questions of manufacture is chiefly derivable from

the Annals of Fu-liang, as translated by M. Julien,

from the letters of Pere d'Entrecolles, from the an-

notations of M. Salvetat, and from minor sources.

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