Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/90

 brown in colour. The paste consists of white porcelain, but it appears that the red-brown colour of the ring has its origin in certain changes of colour produced on the surface of the paste in such parts as are not covered by the enamel, that is, the ring on which the vessel stood while being fired. The ring on the bottom is characteristic of these old céladons, and so is the heaviness and the colour. The musters are of all possible kinds. Thus, for instance, the fluted pattern is often seen. It is, like all ornaments shown in these porcelains, produced by first impressing or engraving it on the paste previous to the enamelling. By putting on the enamel, the concave parts of the surface, representing the pattern, were filled up deeper with this semi-transparent material than the plain parts of the surface, for which reason the white paste shines through in brighter tints where the enamel is thin, whereas the pattern appears in a somewhat darker shade. I have seen the lotus flower in the middle of these dishes, or the fish ornament, or some sort of a checkered pattern spread over the whole surface. These dishes never bear a mark underneath the enamel; it appears therefrom that they were made at a time when the custom of marking the period of manufacture did not yet exist.

It is a point of some interest to ascertain how Chinese céladons found their way in these early days to almost all the countries included in the region between Japan and the Key Islands. Dr. Hirth has investigated the subject with infinite pains and wide reference to sources of information. The results of his researches may be summarized here, as embodied in a pamphlet published in 1888 in Shanghai.

In the thirteenth century there were two important channels of traffic from the keramic centres of the Middle Kingdom to the outer world. The termini of these channels were at Hang-chow, the capital of Chêkiang (spoken of by Marco Polo under the name of "Quin-sai") and at Zaitun, a place