Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/173

 tion that the imperial veto held good throughout the reign. Kang-hsi had only occupied the throne five years when the prohibition in question was issued. It is impossible to believe that the numerous and undoubtedly genuine surviving examples of porcelains bearing the mark of the epoch were manufactured during those five years. This observation applies, however, to wares other than those decorated with the Hawthorn Pattern. On them a year-mark is seldom, if ever, found. In the great majority of cases they are without a mark of any description, the bottoms being quite plain, or having only a blue ring within the rim.

The "Hawthorn Pattern" is here placed first among the blue-and-white porcelains of the Kang-hsi era, not because it is technically entitled to that rank, but because of its merits from a decorative point of view, the reputation it justly enjoys among European and American collectors, and its special connection with the period. It may be safely asserted that all really fine "Hawthorns" belong to the Kang-hsi era, and that their manufacture virtually came to an end at its close.

The master-piece of the time, in blue-and-white, is the Kai-pien-yao, or soft-paste craquelé porcelain, which now began to be produced again in all its former beauty. Of this charming ware so much has been already said that a few words will suffice here. The Kai-pien-yao of the Kang-hsi era is scarcely, if at all, inferior to its predecessor of the Ming dynasty. The only immediately perceptible difference is that the pâte of the former does not show the distinctly red tinge peculiar to Hsuan-tê and Chêng-hwa specimens. It is evident that slightly different materials