Page 307 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Kuangtung Wares 171

and Yi-hsing glazes of this class. The crackle, too, is more open
and obvious. Some of these pieces have the appearance of con-

siderable antiquity, and are reputed to date back to Sung times.^
Midway between these and the familiar mottled Canton stoneware
come what are known in China as the Fat-shan Chiin.^ Their

obvious intention to imitate the old Chiin wares is declared by the

appearance of numerals incised in Chiin Chou fashion under the

Abase. typical example (see Plate 51) is a high-shouldered flower

vase with short neck and small mouth (not a Sung but a Ming form,

be it noted), with thick, rolling, crackled glaze of pinkish cream

colour, shading into lavender and flushing deep red on the shoulders.

In rare instances the crimson spreads over the greater part of the

surface. The biscuit at the base is brownish grey if its light tint

is not concealed by a wash of dark clay. The glaze, unlike that

of the type described by Brinkley, is fairly fluescent, thin at the

mouth, and running thick in the lower levels. Other examples

of this class have heavily mottled grey or blue glazes nearer in

style to the Canton stoneware. Indeed, they are clearly made
at the same factory as the latter, for we have a connecting link

between the two groups in a vase in the Eumorfopoulos Collec-

tion, a tall cylinder with streaky lavender blue glaze and the
usual silken lustre, the base of buff colour washed with brown

slip and marked with the square seal of Ko Ming-hsiang. Many

of these " Fat-shan Chiin " wares are exceedingly attractive, but

by far the most beautiful are the rare dishes in which the glaze

has been allowed to form in deep pools of glass in the centre.^

In these pieces all the changing tints of the surrounding glaze
are concentrated in the cavity in a crystalline mass of vivid
colour. Such v>ares are, I think, not older than the Ch'ing

dynasty, though they have been erroneously described by some

writers as Sung.'*

1 See Burlington Magazine, January, 1910, p. 220.

2 I am indebted to Mr. A. "W. Bahr for much information on these and the Yi-hsing

Chun imitations.

= Three beautiful examples were exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in

K1910, {Cat., 20, 23 and 41), on the last of which the lavender tints on the sides

passed into a glassy pool of brilliant peacock blue.

* There is an interesting example of this crystalline glaze in Mrs. Potter Palmer's

collection. It is a bowl of coarse grey porcelain, with blue glaze on the exterior. In-
side is a crimson red glaze of Canton type, in the centre of which is a pool of amber

glass. The explanation seems to be that we have here a bowl of coarse export porce-

lain treated at a Canton factory with their crystalline glaze.