Page 486 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

colours are no longer manufactured in China and that
the methods of producing them are lost. There are
also found, in certain Chinese colours, shades which

appear accidental, as celadons and reds, and which

prove that those people owed much to chance in
their manufactures. The same glaze gives different

results under varying conditions. It has been well

demonstrated by me that empirical essays only could

have led to the discovery of most of the colours

which we seek to imitate. This remark applies above

all to colours obtained by mixing, in variable propor-

tions, ferruginous manganese and cobaltiferous earth

with white glazing material already prepared. It is

evident that colours obtained by such mixing could

not always present identical tints that the state of
;

the atmosphere in the furnace could change them ;

that they would be more or less green, more or less

black, according to the original composition of the

materials employed in their preparation and according

to the proportions in which those materials were

mixed. " The/oW laque (golden brown or dead-leaf

colour) of China presents, like the colours we have

just enumerated, variations of tone. Sometimes it is

clear sometimes it is deep ; sometimes it is like
;

bronze. These differences are due to the proportion

of oxide of iron which enters into the components

of the mass, as well as to the influences of the gas

which envelops it in the kiln. . . . The colour, as

is known, can be perfectly imitated in France by

adding to ordinary white glazing material a quantity

of oxide of iron.

" The mineral cobalt, as it is found in China, that

is to say, peroxide of cobaltiferous manganese, mixed

simply with white glazing material, gives a blue

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