Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/658

Rh 634 POTTERY [CHINESE PORCELAIN. Decora tion. Plain white. One enamel colour. exactly known, but it appears to resemble kaolin, with the addition of a considerable proportion of free silica. The result of their mixture is shown in the following analysis by M. Laurent of the body of white Chinese porcelain silica 70 5 per cent., alumina 20 7, potash 6, lime 5, protoxide of iron 8 per cent., magnesia a trace. The white pastes of which the porcelain is made are very carefully washed, finely ground, and mixed in due pro portion. The paste is &quot; thrown &quot; on the potter s wheel in the usual way and set to dry ; its coloured decoration is then applied, and over that the transparent glaze is laid. This is a very hard and beautiful substance, which requires great heat to fuse it ; it is made of almost pure felspar with an alkaline flux. It is finely ground with water, and either blown with a pipe on to the vessel or the vessel is dipped into it. The porcelain is next packed in clay boxes or &quot;saggers,&quot; piled one above another in the kiln, in order to protect it from discoloration from the smoke. After the kiln has been heated for a considerable time to a very high temperature, the fire is withdrawn ; and the porcelain is allowed to cool slowly in the clay saggers before the kiln is opened and its contents removed. Additional decoration is frequently added over the glaze, generally in enamel colours, applied thickly so as to stand out in perceptible relief ; gilding is also added over the glaze. The porcelain is afterwards fired a second time in a more open kiln, and at a lower temperature. The methods of decoration on Chinese porcelain are ex tremely varied, and are applied with the most skilful hand and Avonderful fertility of design ; but they are always dainty and feebly pretty rather than artistic, except when there is a Persian element present. The Chinaman is a born maker of graceful toys, full of ingenuity and perfect deftness of touch, but hardly worthy to be classed as a producer of serious Avorks of art. The general forms of the porcelain are mostly feeble, and often of extreme ugliness, while the skill in drawing is mostly confined to representations of flowers, some of which, especially the chrysanthemum and the paeony, are painted with great truth and enjoyment. With the beauties of the human form the Chinaman has no acquaintance or sympathy, and he never possessed the wonderful skill of the Japanese in the delineation of animals and birds. Only a few chief examples among the many methods of decorative treatment can be mentioned here. A useful classification has been adopted by Mr A. W. Franks in his valuable catalogue of his own collection of porcelain, for merly exhibited at Bethnal Green, and now (1885) in the British Museum. 1. Plain white, of a delicate ivory colour and a rich satin-like glaze. Some of it is crackled, not accidentally, but by a careful process, one of the methods of which is this. Powdered steatite is mixed with the materials of the felspathic glaze, and the porce lain vessel or statuette, after the glaze is applied, but before tiring, is set in the rays of a hot sun, which causes it to be covered with a network of fine cracks, going through the skin of glaze down to the porcelain body. Red pigment or black Chinese ink is then rubbed into the minute cracks, which are thus made more con spicuous, and prevented from quite closing up in the heat of the kiln. Many speci mens have two sets of crackle, first the coloured cracks produced before firing, and secondly an intermediate uncoloured set, produced in the glaze by the action of the kiln (see fig. 67). Most of this white ware is decorated with delicate surface- reliefs of flowers or figures very sharply moulded. Old specimens of it are now highly valued in China. It was frequently copied in the early European porcelain manufactories, , such as Saint Cloud, Meissen, and Chelsea. 2. Porcelain covered with one Enamel ^ Colour. Enamels of many varieties of tint - 67. Chinese cup wit1 crackle glaze. and great brilliance were used : the finest are blue, from copper or cobalt ; deep red, another oxide of copper ; yellow, antimoriiate of lead ; and black, oxides of iron and manganese. One of the most beautiful is that sea-green tint called &quot;celadon,&quot; which was early exported into England, and highly valued in medieval times from its supposed property of changing colour at the contact of poison. New College, Oxford, possesses a bowl of this ware, mounted in silver richly worked, of about 1500 A.ix, and presented to the college by Archbishop Warham early in the 16th century. A speci men of this celadon ware is probably referred to among the list of new-year s gifts to Queen Elizabeth as &quot; a cup of grene pursselyne &quot; given by Robert Cecil. The fine old yellow porcelain was only made tor the use of the emperor of China, and it is consequently rare ; it is very thin and transparent, almost like a vitreous enamel. Some of the Chinese enamelled wares are made of pottery, not of porce lain ; earthenware, in many cases, was equally good for the purpose, as the body of the vessel was hidden by the coloured enamel. 3. Porcelain decorated loith several Enamels or Glazes of different Sevei Colours. This ware is frequently moulded in relief, with dragons, flowers, or various ani mals, picked out in dif ferent colours, often very harsh and gaudy in effect. Fig. 68 shows a pilgrim - bottle painted in enamel colours. The beauty both of form and of decoration for which this piece is very re markable is mainly due to Persian influence. 4. Porcelain painted in White Enamel over a Ground of Coloured Enamel. This is a very decorative sort of ware ; the designs, such as flowers, birds, and in sects, ai e applied thickly in the white pigment, and are sometimes care fully modelled in low relief. The method was largely imitated by the Persians (see p. 620 ^ IG&amp;gt; ^8. Chinese pilgrim-flask, painted with above). enamel colours ; Persian style. 5. Porcelain painted only in Blue.- This is really the most artistic P&amp;gt;lue and highly decorative of all the varieties of Chinese painted wares. Some of the large plates and jars have very good designs, treated in a not too realistic manner. Much of the finest porcelain of this class both in form and decoration shows a strong Persian influence, the result of the intercourse between China and Persia and the visit of Chinese potters to Ispahan mentioned above in the account of Persian pottery. Nanking porcelain, painted with the so-called &quot;hawthorn pattern,&quot; really a kind of Primus which produces its blossoms before its leaves, was largely imported into England during the last century, and now fetches very exorbitant prices. Unluckily during the 18th century a great deal of the fine blue and white china brought into England was painted over the glaze with harsh gaudy colours in English and French porcelain manufactories, to please the degraded taste of the time, and was thus completely spoiled. Other combinations of Chinese and European work occur. Sets of porcelain were painted in China with French or English designs to suit the European market ; or plain white porcelain was sent from China to be decorated at Chelsea or Bow. Very ludicrous results were produced in some cases by this mixture of style ; engravings were sent from Europe to be copied on porcelain by the Chinese potters, who have in many cases laboriously painted an exact facsimile of the copper-plate lines with all their hatchings and scratchy look. Some of these were done for Jesuit missionaries in China, and Chinese plates with Catholic sacred subjects and figures of saints exist in considerable quantities. Statuettes of the Madonna were also made in China for the missionaries, carefully modelled in white porcelain after European originals ; some appear to be copies from 14th-century French ivory figures, and (even in the hands of the Chinese potter) have preserved a strong resem blance to their mediaeval original. The type of the Holy Mother thus introduced appears to have been adopted by the Chinese Buddhists as a fitting representation of their goddess Kwan-lin, many figures of whom were made with but little alteration from the statuettes of the Catholic Madonna. 1 6. Porcelain painted in many Colours under the Glaze. This Pol; very large class includes all varieties of form and decoration. The chrc colours are often harsh and inharmonious, and the more elaborate und figure-subjects are nearly always grotesque and ugly. Additional gla2 1 See Watkins Old, Indo-European Porcelain (Hereford, 1882).