Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/45

 mens having ornamental designs cut into the paste are the most excellent. Plain pieces are also good. Those which have ornaments worked into (or painted on) the glaze are of the second quality. The best specimens were made during the periods Chêng-ho (1111-1117) and Hsüan-ho (1119-1125); but these are difficult to procure. Brown ware was also made at Ting-chou, and a black variety resembling black lacquer in colour." Dr. Hirth, who gives this extract, quotes further from another Chinese work to the effect that the ornaments of the Ting-yao were (1) engraved, or cut into the paste; (2) worked into the glaze or painted, and (3) printed or pressed on with a mould. It will be well to explain at once that the term "painted" is not to be understood here in its ordinary sense. Keramic decoration by painting with colours under or over the glaze, was not practised by the Ting-chou potters. The process described as "painting" probably meant decoration with slip, whether above or below the glaze, but there are no means of determining this with certainty. The general description of the Sung Ting-yao is that it was semi-porcelain, with fine, greyish pâte, tolerably thin and sonorous, and a creamy glaze, seldom crackled, closely resembling the shell of an egg in colour, but sometimes showing a pronounced tinge of buff. The decorative designs, usually incised in the pâte, consisted, for the most part, of the Fei-fêng (flying phœnix), the dragon, the peony, arabesques and scrolls. The pure white variety was called Pai-ting; that showing a tinge of buff was called Fan-ting. With regard to the "tear-marks" mentioned by the Chinese writers quoted above, they were nothing more or less than technical imperfections. When