Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/65

 residence and practical experience in China ought to have rendered his testimony conclusive, described the ware's colour as "vert-olive." M. Julien, however, adhering to his original interpretation of the ideograph Ching, writes:—"La couleur bleue était le caractère dominant des porcelaines anciennes qui provenaient de Lung-chuan."

Many specimens of the Lung-chuan-yao were ornamented with designs in relief, sometimes copied from ancient bronzes; sometimes consisting of floral scrolls, arabesques, and so forth. Occasionally portions of the surface were left unglazed, and upon the figure subjects—as the Eight Taoist Immortals, the Seven Gods of Happiness, the Kylin or the Phoenix—were moulded in high relief. A very common fashion in this style of decoration was to mould two unglazed fishes on the bottom of a bowl or plate. Incised designs are also frequently met with. In them, as well as in raised designs, nothing is commoner than a scroll of peonies.

The porcelain stone used in the manufacture of Lung-chuan ware is said by the author of the Tao-lu to have been fine and white. This description applies to the condition of those parts of the stone not exposed to the direct action of heat in the porcelain kiln. When so exposed, the pâte became red, or reddish brown, and this change of colour is an essential mark of genuineness. Beautiful céladons were manufactured at Ching-tê-chên during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but they lack the "red mouth and iron foot" of the true Lung-chuan-yao. In the Kuan-yao also the pâte shows these colours, but whereas the porcelain stone used in the manufacture of the Kuan-yao appears to have been red originally, that