Page 232 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

ii8 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

of the grey glazes, but here, too, the colour is only relatively pure ;

and I am convinced that the expression used by the Po wu yao

Ian is exaggerated, and the meaning is that the nearer the Chiin

colours approach to uniformity the more they were prized. It is

true that several examples depicted in Hsiang's Album are mono-

chrome purple, but I have no more confidence in the colouring

of these illustrations than in the carved decoration which is indi-

cated under their glaze, a phenomenon unrecorded in any other

Chinese work, unexampled in any known specimen of the ware,

and unlikely in view of the nature and the thickness of the Chiin

glaze itself.

It is clear, however, that an exaggerated mottling of the glaze

and a confusion of many colours was viewed with disfavour by the

old Chinese connoisseurs. These effects were explained in the Po
wu yao Ian as due to insufficient firing. Regarded in this light they

were viewed with contempt by the earlier Chinese writers and

labelled with mocking names, such as lo kan ma fei (mule's liver

and horse's lung), pig's liver, and the like. In reality, they were

the forerunners of the many delightful -fiainbe glazes which the
eighteenth-century potters were able to produce at will when they

had learnt that, like all the Chiin colours except the brown glaze

on the base, they cpuld be obtained from oxide of copper under

Howdefinite firing conditions. far the old Chiin effects were due

to opalescence^ it is impossible to say, but we know that all of

them can be obtained, whether turquoise, green, crimson, or lavender
grey, by that " Protean medium," oxide of copper, according as

it is exposed in the firing to an oxidising or reducing atmosphere,

conditions which could be regulated by the introduction of air on

the one hand, or wood smoke on the other, at the right moment

into the kiln.

It should be added that the finer Chiin wares as seen in the

flower pots and stands have an olive or yellowish brown glaze over

the base, which in rare instances is overrun by frothy grey or

lavender. Another constant feature of these pieces is a ring of
small scars or " spur marks " on the base.

The list of porcelains made at the Imperial factories about 1730 ^

includes a series of imitations of Chiin glazes from specimens sent

1 See p. 50.

* See Chiang hsi fung chih, vol. xciii, fol. 11 and seq. Quoted also in the T'ao lu,
and translated by Bushell, 0. C. A., p. 369 ; and vol. ii., p. 223, of this work.