Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/375

 POLYCHROMATIC GLAZES

applied bands of crackle alternately with bands of un- broken glaze. Fine specimens of this nature were manufactured during the Chien-/ung era. A frequent type had grey, or light green, body glaze, distinctly crackled, while round the vase ran belts of chocolate glaze uncrackled but having incised diapers and leaf- fringes. Skilled technique and carefully prepared materials being essential to the successful manufacture of such vases, it is easy to distinguish the compara- tively clumsy, crude outcome of the Taou-kwang and later kilns. Another and much rarer four de force was to vary the nature of the crackle in one and the same glaze, preserving, however, sufficient uniformity to avoid any suggestion of accident. Thus the crackle round the upper part of a vase assumes a circular form, while below it is angular, the distinction being em- phasised by a marked difference in the size of the two kinds of mesh. A technical curiosity of this kind is of course highly valued, but that it could be produced at will seems most improbable. It will of course be understood that in almost every case crackle is merely a decorative accessory. The one exception is white porcelain, the crackle of which constitutes its only ornament. In choice specimens of this variety the thick, lustrous glaze shows a faint tinge of buff, and the crackle is bold and strongly marked. Such porcelain, being admirably suited for flower vases, used to be esteemed in the East, but it is without delicacy, and can scarcely be classed among choice wares.

The above remarks apply only to crackle having large meshes, the “starred ice” variety. But a reader who has followed the descriptions given in previous pages of various kinds of porcelain, knows

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