Page 167 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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Lung-ch'iian yao 83

makes a vessel ; know it to be the porcelain (tz'u) of the Tung

kilns ^^."1

In the classification of old celadons due account must be taken

of the imitations made from the earliest times at Ching-te Chen.
Many of these would be distinguishable by their white porcelain

body, the ordinary porcelain clay of the district not having the

pecuhar qualities of the Lung-ch'iian and Ch'u-chou Fu material.
In fact, we know that it has been a common practice in recent
times among the Ching-te Chen potters to dress the exposed parts
of their ware with brown ferruginous earth when they wished to
reproduce the " brown mouth or iron foot " of the archaic wares.

Another method which was found effective by imitators of the

antique was to use a coarse yellowish clay for the body of the ware.

This, however, should be generally recognisable. But the skill of
the Chinese copyist is proverbial, and a good instance of his cun-

ning is given in the now celebrated letters of Pere d'Entrecolles,

a Jesuit missionary stationed at Ching-te Chen in the K'ang Hsi

period. The passage ^ is interesting enough to be quoted in full

" The mandarin of Kim ie Chim, who honours me with his friend-

ship, makes for his patrons at the Court presents of old porcelain

which he has himself a genius for fabricating. I mean that he

has discovered the art of imitating antique porcelain, or at least

that of comparative antiquity ; and he employs a number of work-

men for this purpose. The material of these false Kou torn, viz.

counterfeit antiques, is a yellowish clay, obtained in a place quite

Manear Kim te Chim, called ngan chart. They are constructed

very thick. The mandarin has given me a plate of this make, which

weighs as much as ten ordinary plates. There is nothing peculiar

in the manufacture of these kinds of porcelain beyond that they

are covered with a glaze made of yellow stone, mingled with the

ordinary glaze, the latter predominating in the mixture, which

gives the porcelain a sea green colour. When it is fired it is placed

in a very rich broth made of chicken and other meats ; in this it
is baked a second time, and after that it is put in the foulest drain
that can be found and left for a month or more. On issuing from

this drain it passes for three or four hundred years old, or at any

1 Quoted from the Yiin tsao (a selection of verses) in the T'ao lu, bk. ix., fol. 3.
2 See Recueil des letlres edifiantes et curieuses. The above passage occurs in a
long letter dated from Jao Chou, September 1st, 1712. See Bushell, Chinese Pottery
and Porcelain, Appendix, p. 206.