Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/221

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then esteemed, and that the number or pieces having enamelled designs was small. In support of this statement there is the evidence of the Imperial Requisitions. Among the wares enumerated in the Requisition for the year 1529 (translated by Dr. Bushell), there is not une piece fairly belonging to the Wu-tsai-hi class.

Another important style of decoration was of the kind known to Western connoisseurs as ‘‘ reserved.” The enamels used to depict the design were not super- posed; each was run to the edge of the other. Of this variety the best known and not the least beauti- ful had blue designs sous couverte surrounded by yellow enamel, which covered the whole of the surface ex- cept the part occupied by the design. Great skill was needed to apply enamels in this manner. In rarer cases the places of the two colours were inter- changed; the design being in yellow enamel and the body of the vase blue. ‘To manufacture such pieces the potter must have contrived that after the stoving au grand feu—by which the blue was developed — the design should emerge white, so as to receive the yellow enamel, which was fused by a second stoving au petit feu. A deep brown, or chocolate, enamel was similarly employed in the spaces between yellow or blue designs. Finally, white-slip decoration was applied to the biscuit at the same time as blue (sous couverte), and both were covered with colourless, trans- lucid glaze before stoving. The Imperial Requisition for the year 1529 includes all these varieties with two exceptions. It runs thus : —

Rice Bowls with blue ground surrounding yellow phe:- nixes flying through fairy flowers.

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