Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/301

 MONOCHROMATIC GLAZES

In addition to lustre of glaze, purity of colour, and accuracy of technique, the quality of the biscuit is a useful criterion of period in hard-paste white porce- lain. The Chzen-/ung pate, though fine and close, is softer and more chalky than the pétes of the Kang-A’st and Yung-ching eras. On the whole, the tests of excellence for hard-paste white porcelain are easily applied. The features of good specimens — thinness, lightness, velvet-like gloss of surface, pure white colour, and dexterous finish — can be appreciated by any one.

Marked distinction is to be drawn between the white porcelains hitherto discussed and the well- known “Ivory White,” or “Blanc de Chine,” of Western collectors. Confusion has hitherto existed with respect to this latter variety even among the most painstaking and well-informed European con- noisseurs. The Ivory White was originally produced at Té-hwa, in the province of Fuh-kien, and was consequently called Té-hwa-yao. According to the Tao-lu, the factory was opened during the Ming dynasty, so that it dates no farther back than the second half of the fourteenth century. Like the celebrated wares of the Sung and Yuan potters, the 7é-Awa-yao owed its beauty to texture and tone of glaze rather than to thinness of biscuit or to sur- face decoration. The pére is greyish white, close in grain, very hard, and carefully manipulated. The glaze is of wonderful merit. In good specimens it is at once satiny, lustrous, and indescribably soft. The white is of a peculiar delicate creaminess, which, combined with a pinkish tint, conveys such an impression of ivory that the porcelain may be identified at once by its European name. Many of

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