Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/70

 Ching-tê-chên, and that in order to produce the ferruginous ring in other white porcelains the bottom must be coloured artificially. This is one of the chief characteristics, and one of the tests applied by the natives consists in looking for accidental patches or little spots where the enamel for some reason or other has allowed the raw paste to leak out, these spots coming forward against the intentions of the manufacturer, since they reduce the value of the vessel; if the colour of these patches is genuine, like that of the ring, it helps to increase the confidence in its age, which, in all cases, must be of a date prior to the closing of the factories at Lung-chuan and Ch'u-chou." It must not by any means be assumed, however, that specimens of Lung-Chaun-yao, even though they present the characteristics enumerated here, necessarily date from the Sung era. The vast majority of them probably belong to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For the factories in Chêkiang remained active until about the year 1620. They were not, indeed, always at the same place. At the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368), they were moved to Chu-chou-fu, a town on the same river as Lung-chuan, but about 75 miles farther down, and thus situated half way between Lung-chuan and Wên-chow. Here the manufacture was continued briskly, but the productions lost their old excellence. The manner of manipulating the porcelain stone or its quality gradually deteriorated, and the colour of the glaze lost its delicacy.

During the years immediately preceding the transfer of the factory to Chu-chou-fu, the potters of Lui-tien devoted much care to reproductions of the Ko-yao. This was at the close of the Yuan dynasty