Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/327

 MONOCHROMATIC WARES

covered with white glaze; there is no crackle, and the mark of the Kang-Ast era is generally written in blue under the white glaze.

A third special variety of choice red glaze is called Fan-hung by the Chinese. It has been shown that the ideograph Fan (rice flour), when used with refer- ence to the 7img-yao, implies the presence of a grey- ish buff shade. Its employment in the case of a red glaze indicates that the red is permeated by a soft whitish tone, a rime, as though the glaze had been partially frozen. Fine specimens of Fan-hung are not inferior to either the Lang or the Pin-kwo-ts ing porcelains. Sometimes they have patches or spots of transparent green similar to that seen in the finest type of Pin-kwo-ts'ing. A rare variety of Fan-hung is decorated with designs in blue sous couverte amid the red ground. In specimens of Fan-hung regarded by Chinese connoisseurs as the most delicate in tone and admirable in technique, the glaze at the lower part of the vase passes into an exceedingly soft c/air- de-/une tint, as though the latter were the base of the general colour. The effect of this transition is very beautiful. Marks of date are less frequent upon Fan- Aung than upon Pin-kwo-ts’ing pieces, and sometimes the bottoms of the former are left entirely without glaze. The pastes of all these grand reds alike are white, fine and carefully manipulated, and there is no crackle.

The Pao-shi-hung, or precious ruby glaze, for which, as described above, the Hsuan-té potters of the Ming dynasty were so famous, made its appearance again in the Kang-hsi era. It is scarcely to be distinguished from some specimens of Lang-yao in colour, but it has no crackle, and the glaze on the inner and under

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