Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/176

 Modern potters were not competent to produce successful imitations of work requiring so much skill.

It is remarkable that only in recent years have the merits and beauties of soft-paste blue-and-white porcelain obtained recognition outside China, or even from foreign virtuosi residing in China. Many fine collections of various porcelains have been made by men whose commercial, diplomatic, or consular duties held them in China for a term of years, and whose tastes led them to utilize the golden opportunity that a sojourn in that country afforded two decades ago. But in few, if any, of these collections did the prince of blue-and-white porcelains hold a representative place. Specimens of medium quality were indeed present, but so small was their number and so slight the consideration bestowed on them, that their possessors had evidently acquired them accidentally, and without any real cognisance of their excellence. This singular fact may have been due, in part, to the comparatively high prices that specimens of Kai-pien-yao always commanded in the Chinese market. A native collector seldom thought of seeking any other kind of blue-and-white ware. Hard-paste pieces, except of the egg-shell type, had little attraction for him: however fine their colour and rich their decoration, they did not represent really choice porcelains, according to the standards that he applied. But for soft-paste porcelains of high quality and celebrated eras, he was prepared to pay prices that would have seemed quite extravagant to Western collectors in their uninstructed days; and, as a necessary consequence, traffic in such ware was confined to the Chinese themselves. But when closer and more intelligent scrutiny began to be directed to the subject,