Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/357

 MONOCHROMATIC WARES

interesting and instructive. ‘‘ There is another glaze,’ he writes, “ called Tzd-chin-yu, that is to say, golden brown. I should be disposed to call it rather glaze of the colour of coffee, or bronze or dead leaves. To make it, common yellow clay is taken and treated after the manner of porcelain earth. Of this only the finest parts are employed. They are thrown into water, and formed into a sort of paste as liquid as the purest white glazing material prepared from petro- silex. The two —z.e. the material obtained from the yellow clay and that from petrosilex— have to be subsequently mixed, and in order to determine whether they have been brought to the same degree of con- sistency, bricks of porcelain are dipped into them, and the marks of the liquids on the bricks in each case are compared. To the combined liquids there is further added a compound of lime and fern ashes, which has been brought to a similar state of consistency. The proportions in which the three are mixed depend upon the nature of the colour which it is desired to produce. ... At one time it was customary to manufacture cups with this golden brown glaze out- side, and a pure white glaze on the inner surface. Subsequently the method was varied, and when a vase was to receive the T'zd-chin-yu, small spaces, round or square, were covered beforehand with moistened paper. After applying the glazing material, these papers were removed, and the unglazed spaces thus reserved were decorated with red or blue. When the porcelain was dry it received the usual colourless, translucid glaze, either by immersion or insufHation. Some artists filled the reserved medallions with an uniform ground of azure or black, with the intention

of applying designs in gold after the first stoving.”’ 327