Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/205

 to the fact that the porcelain originally came to Japan from Canton, and was therefore supposed to be the product of factories in or near that city. But the ware had nothing to do with either Nankin or Canton. It was manufactured at Ching-tê-chên, not in the imperial factories, however, but in those of the people. Its special appellation in the West and in Japan must not be taken as indicating radical dissimilarity from ordinary blue-and-white porcelains. The difference is merely an affair of quality. The pâte, though exceptionally thin, does not suggest the idea of a fine manufacture; the glaze is vitreous rather than lustrous, and has no claim to solidity; the decoration, though elaborate and profuse, is of the mechanical type, and the blue, if not impure, is thin and shallow. In the case of much of this "Nankin" ware the subjects chosen by the decorators were evidently influenced by European suggestion. Some of the designs closely resemble the formal floral scrolls of Delft and Sèvres, and others display distinctly Indian or Persian features. The disposition of the potter to construct pieces of polygonal section and to break the surface by fluting or convex panels, seems also a distinct reflection of foreign fashions. It is not likely that orders for blue-and-white porcelain were often given by European merchants in China during the last century. Enamelled wares would rather have been chosen. But orders for the latter would of course have been executed at the people's factories, not at those of the Emperor, and the makers of blue-and-white porcelain may thus have been indirectly inspired. There is no doubt, too, that during the reign of Kang-hsi when the propagandists of Christianity possessed