Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/169

 resisting great heat, and in all designs where very fine lines occurred, this blue had to be used. The duty of selecting the mineral devolved upon a special class of experts, and the whole art of refining and employing it was evidently carried to a high pitch of development. The result amply justified this toil, for the Kang-hsi era bequeathed to posterity porcelains of unsurpassed brilliancy and beauty.

Père d'Entrecolles, in his description of the processes witnessed by himself at the Kang-hsi factories, says that when a vase was intended to be entirely blue, it was dipped in a solution of cobalt. This method was not resorted to in the case of "Hawthorns." The pigment was laid on with a brush, not uniformly, but in overlapping layers, so as to produce the effect of clouds varying in depth and brilliancy. The beauty of the surface was wonderfully enhanced by this simple device. Sometimes a marbled or tessellated aspect was obtained by means of dark lines intersecting in diamonds or squares. The latter method, generally resorted to when the decoration consisted of clusters of petals only (without connecting branches or trunks), belongs to an inferior order of art conception, though what it loses through excessive formality is compensated in the opinion of many connoisseurs by the stronger play of reflected light on a surface thus treated.

In judging a specimen of "Hawthorn" the first point to be considered is the nature of the blue. The purer and more brilliant the colour, the better the specimen. Great depth, amounting almost to darkness, though highly prized by many connoisseurs for the sake of its fine contrast with the white design, is not an essential mark of quality. The design it-