Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/143

 and softness. With regard to general technique, however, the Chêng-hwa blue-and-white ware is not at all inferior to that of Hsuan-tê. Some connoisseurs, indeed, give the palm to the former, and all agree that the artistic skill shown by the Chêng-hwa decorators was distinctly superior to that of their predecessors. The Tao-lu says of the Chêng-hwa-yao ware: "As for the blue employed, it was of ordinary quality. In so far as this point is concerned, the Chên-hwa ware fell far below the ware of Hsuan-tê. But the former surpassed all antecedent and subsequent productions in regard to painting and coloured enamels. Its merit consisted in the skill of the painters and the fineness of the colouring matters. The author is here speaking chiefly of porcelain decorated with vitrifiable enamels over the glaze, a class of production that does not belong to this section of the subject. But his verdict as to the pictorial skill of the Chéng-hwa decorators certainly embraces blue-and-white porcelain also. It will be understood, of course, that allusion is here made to Kai-pien-yao (soft-paste porcelain). In all eras this ware stands at the head of blue-and-white specimens.

Need it be said that genuine examples of soft-paste Hsuan-yao and Chêng-hwa yao are well-nigh unprocurable? Their Chinese possessors set an almost prohibitive value on them. In judging their authenticity, what the connoisseur has to examine first is the colour and nature of the pâte. It should be fine as pipe clay and of distinctly reddish brown tinge. Sometimes in Chêng-hwa specimens the colour of the biscuit shows through its covering, and imparts a pearly grey tinge to the surface of the piece. Soft and beautiful as is the effect of this transmitted tone,