Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/133

 yao and its successors, tradition says nothing, and no analysis has been made in modern times. But the soft pâte of the Hsuan-tê blue-and-white ware is said to have been obtained by adding to porcelain-stone clay taken from the bed of the river at Ching-tê-chên. The Tao-lu, speaking of the vases manufactured at the imperial kilns during this epoch, says that they were made with "red, plastic clay;" that their "biscuit was like cinnabar," and that "all the materials employed were of the finest quality." M. Salvétat was led by this description to conjecture that the author of the Tao-lu referred to fine stone-ware of the Grès de Flandre class. Such was not the case, however. The Hsuan-yao is the type of a large number of porcelains manufactured continuously by Chinese keramists from 1426 to 1810, and regarded by the connoisseurs of the Middle Kingdom as the choicest and most valuable ware of their kind (blue-and-white). Its distinctive features are great thinness and lightness of pâte—though many beautiful specimens lack these special qualities—a peculiar crackled glaze, differing essentially from all other glazes run over blue decoration, and a waxy white ground, the snow-like purity of which contrasts exquisitely with the colour of the decoration. The glaze being perfectly translucid, it is evident that the blue decoration cannot have been applied directly to the reddish brown biscuit. The latter had to be previously covered with some white opaque substance, on the preparation and application of which much of the specimen's beauty depended. Possibly steatite was employed for the purpose. M. d'Entrecolles speaks as follows of this mineral:—