Page:New Peterson magazine 1859 Vol. XXXVI.pdf/424

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386

CHINESE

PORCELAIN.

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cream-colored specimens are rare and much

prized—these are seldom seen out of China.

The greens, light and dark, turquoise, and reds are generally ﬁnely glazed, and have the crackle lines small and minute. In coloring these ex amples are exquisite, and in this respect they i throw the ﬁnest spccimens'of European porcelain

k The green and turquoise quite into the shade. g

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crackle made in China at the present. day are very inferior to the old kinds. Perhaps the rarest and most expensive of all ancient crackles

is a yellowish stone-color. Of other ancient porcelain (not crackle) prized by the Chinese, we may mention the specimens

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(generally vases) with a white ground, enameled with ﬁgures of various colors, as green, black,

Vase ot' Sea-green Crackle.

To begin with what is called old crackle porce lain by collectors. The Chinese have many kinds of this manufacture, some of which are extremely i

rare and beautiful.

In the whites and greys the i.

crackle is larger, and the older specimens are E

often bound by a metallic-looking band, which it sets off the specimens to great advantage. White and grey are the common colors amongst modern g

Ovit‘orm Bottle of rare Turquoise color.

and yellow. It is a curious fact that the attempts

crackle; but the latter is easily known from its 3 made at the present day by porcelain manufac inferiority to the more ancient. The yellow and turers to ﬁx such colors invariably fail. '/~.r”/,1 a/r ~v/ II The self-colored specimens, such as pure whites, creams, crimsons, reds, blues, greens,

and v’iolets, are very ﬁne, and much prized by Chinese collectors. But the most ancient examples of porcelain,

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are in the form of circular dishes with upright sides, very thick, strong, and heavy, and in variably having the marks of one, two, or three, on the bottom, written in this form, II, III_

2 The kinds most highly prized have a brownish~

s yellow ground, over which is thrown a light

shot sky-blue, with here and there a dash of

blood-red. The Chinese tell us these specimens are more tlmn a thousand years old. A speci t men shown by a Chinese merchant- in Canton

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Gourd-shaped Bottle of yellowish stone-color Crackle.

was valued at three hundred dollars! Within the last few years the attention of role lectors in this country and Europe has been