Page 216 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

io6 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

but there are others,^ strong and forcefully modelled, which rank

with the best ceramic statuary. These, no doubt, belong to

Athe older and better periods. good example is shown in

Plate 32.

The other large group of Tz'u Chou wares, that with engraved

designs {hua, hud), is perhaps the most interesting of the three.

One class, the white ware with carved ornament, if it existed, has

been merged, like the plain white, in the Ting wares. The vase

(Plate 33, Fig. 2) with brown glaze and panelled design exactly

corresponding to those of the typical painted wares, but engraved

with a pointed instrument through the brown glaze, forms a link

between the two main groups.^ But the more characteristic Tz'u

Chou engraved ornament is executed by what is usually known as

the graffiato process, the lines of the design being cut through a
layer of slip which contrasts in colour with the underlying

material. This is illustrated by those vases on which the orna-

ment is etched through a covering of white slip disclosing the

greyish body beneath, or, better still, by specimens like Plate 34,

Fig. 3, in which the ground of the pattern is freely cut away,
exposing considerable areas of the body.^ The greyish body colour

combines with the transparent but creamy glaze to produce a

delicate mouse-coloured surface, from which the pattern stands

out in ivory white. In other cases a thick lustrous brown black

glaze has been boldly carved, leaving the design to contrast

with an unglazed grey biscuit (Plate 34, Fig. 3). By varying and

combining these different methods, and by changing and counter-

changing the slips, a great diversity of effects was readily obtained.

It has been frequently remarked that some of the engraved speci-

mens with bands of large foliage scrolls have an astonishing resem-

blance to Italian graffiato ware of the sixteenth century ; and this

resemblance is particularly striking when, as sometimes happens,

a green glaze is used instead of the ordinary creamy covering. No

doubt these carved wares, like their fellows with painted orna-

D^ See Burlington Magazine, August, 1911, and Cat B. F. A., 19 and 41.

* The link is strengthened by the presence of the black painted bands which border

the main designs. See also Burlington Magazine, loc, cit., August, 1911, " On Some

Old Chinese Pottery."

^ On a few specimens, the date of which is by no means certain, a design of leaves
is executed by a peculiar process, in which an actual leaf seems to have been used
as a stencil, being stuck on to the ware while the slip was applied, and afterwards

removed, leaving a leaf-shaped pattern in reserve. A somewhat similar use of leaf

stencilling is described on p. 133.