There then follows a description of King-te-chen, with its long streets and its population of more than a million, ‘as is commonly reported.’ He tells us of a rich Chinese merchant who, after making his fortune in the Indies, had built a magnificent temple to the Queen of Heaven (Kwan-yin, probably). The European piastres he had brought back were well known in the district, although this was not the case in other parts of China. We have a picture of the busy quay and of the three ranges of junks closely packed along the side, and for a background the whirlwinds of flame rising from the three thousand kilns of the city.[78] After praising the admirable police arrangements, he comes to his main subject, the manufacture of porcelain.
The small vessels that bring down the kaolin and the petuntse (in the latter he notes the scattered shiny particles—the mica) from a distance of twenty or thirty leagues are even more numerous than the big junks that take the finished ware down to Jao-chau. The details of manufacture that follow—and to quote them would be only to go once more over the ground covered in a previous chapter—were learned by the Père D’Entrecolles not only from the Christian workmen, but by frequent visits to the works themselves. ‘These great laboratories,’ he tells us, ‘have been for me a kind of Areopagus where I have preached’ (I quote the rest in French) ‘celui qui a formé le premier homme de limon et des mains duquel nous sortons pour devenir des vases de gloire ou d’ignominie.’
In describing the preparation of the paste much stress is laid upon the care taken to exclude all extraneous matter, especially that which may have been introduced into the kaolin or petuntse by way of adulteration. The slip for the glaze—for the latter the Chinese term ‘oil’ is retained—is said to be brought down from the mountains, where it is prepared, in a liquid form. The division of labour in the manufacture is carried so far that a piece of porcelain before completion may pass through the hands of as many as seventy workmen, to each of whom a separate task is assigned.
The important part played by moulding, both as a direct process and subsidiary to throwing on the wheel, is well brought out in this description. I will give a rendering of the passage in which the process of moulding is described, as in an English translation in a recent work there is some apparent confusion. ‘When the piece to be copied is of such a nature that it cannot be imitated with the potter’s hands on the wheel, a special kind of clay used only for moulds is impressed upon it [i.e. upon the model]. In this way a mould is made of several pieces, each of a considerable size. These pieces are now dried, and when they are required for use they are held near the fire for some time, after which they are filled with the paste to the thickness desirable in the porcelain. The paste is pressed in with the hands and the mould is again placed near the fire. The impressed figure becomes at once detached from the mould by the heat that consumes the moisture that has made it adhere. The different parts of a piece separately moulded are now joined together with a somewhat liquid slip, made of the same material as the porcelain.’ Great numbers of these moulds are kept in stock, so that an order from Europe can be quickly executed.
The porcelain painters, he tells us, are just as ‘poor beggars’ (gueux) as the other workmen; and he has evidently a very mean opinion of the art of painting as practised at that time in China: ‘Ils ignorent les belles règles de cet Art.’ But such an estimate of Oriental art was universal at that time, when everything was measured from the standpoint of Versailles and the roi soleil. ‘The work of the painter is divided in the same laboratory among a great number of workmen. It is the sole business of one to trace the coloured circle that we see near the edge of the vessel; another draws the outline of the flowers, which a third fills in. One painter does the mountains and the water, another the birds and the animals. It is the human figure that is the most badly handled.... As for the colours on the porcelain, we find all sorts. Little is seen in Europe except that with bright blue on a white ground. I think, however, that our merchants have brought over other kinds.’ (The implication is, no doubt, ‘since I have left France.’ This helps us to fix the date of the introduction of coloured porcelain into Europe.) ‘Some we find with a ground like that of our burning mirrors.’ (This is doubtless the Wu-chin, or metallic black of the Chinese. This ‘mirror-black’ is compared to a concave glass blackened behind.) ‘Other kinds are wholly red, and among them some are d’un rouge à l’huile (yu-li-hung), and some of a rouge soufflé (chui-hung), and covered with little points almost like a miniature. When these two varieties are executed with perfect success—and to do this is difficult enough—they are highly esteemed and are very dear.’ The yu-li-hung, literally ‘red inside the glaze,’ may be taken to include the various shades of red derived from copper, of the grand feu. The rouge soufflé is explained below. The word ‘miniature’ is used, I think, in the old sense of an illuminated manuscript. ‘Finally there are kinds of porcelain with the landscapes on them painted with a mixture of nearly every colour, heightened by a brilliant gilding. These are very beautiful, if no expense is spared. Otherwise the ordinary porcelain of this kind is not to be compared with that which is painted with azure alone. The Annals of King-te-chen say that formerly the people used nothing but a white ware.’
The source of the cobalt blue is now discussed and its mode of preparation. The raw material is thrown into the bed of the furnace and there roasted for twenty-four hours. It is then reduced to an impalpable powder in a mortar of biscuit porcelain. The red is made by roasting copperas to a high temperature in a crucible. The white that is used as an enamel in decorating porcelain is prepared from ‘un caillou transparent,’ which is also roasted on the floor of the furnace.[79] This caillou is mixed with two parts of white lead, and this mixture forms a flux—the basis for the colours. There then follows some account of the other colours used, but here it is difficult to follow the good father. He makes some strange statements, which are not all of them cleared up in his supplementary letter of 1722. There are indeed so many amplifications and corrections in the latter that it will be well to combine in our summary the gleanings from the two sources. This second letter is dated from King-te-chen after an interval of ten years, and shows a greater acquaintance with practical details.
Passing over the account of the flambé and of some other glazes—to avoid repetition we will defer our remarks till we come to speak of these wares in the next chapter—we hear in the second letter of a valuable material lately discovered which may take the place of kaolin in the composition of the paste. This is described as a chalky-looking body which is largely used by Chinese doctors as a medicine and is called Hua-shi.
We will here interrupt the Père D’Entrecolles’s account to mention that the hua-shi is strictly speaking soapstone or steatite, a silicate of magnesia. But whether magnesia ever enters into the paste or glaze of Chinese porcelain is as yet a disputed question.[80] As far as I know, it has never been found by analysis. The Chinese nomenclature of rocks is necessarily based on their physical aspect alone. Some specimens sent from King-te-chen, which were described on the labels as hua-shi, were found at Sèvres to consist of an impure kaolin containing a large quantity of mica.
To return to the father’s letters:—In China this hua-shi is five times as dear as kaolin. Four parts of it are mixed with one part of petuntse to make the paste. The porcelain made with this material is rare, and much more expensive than any other. Compared to ordinary porcelain, it is as vellum compared with paper; it is, besides, of a lightness that is quite surprising. It is, however, very fragile, and there are great difficulties connected with the firing. For this reason it is sometimes only applied as a coating to the surface of ordinary paste. The hua-shi is also used to form an ivory-white slip, with which designs are delicately painted on the surface of the vessel. (We may probably identify this hua-shi ware with the sha t’ai or ‘soft paste,’ so called, of Western collectors.)
What we are told by the Jesuit father about the revival of the manufacture of celadon is of great interest. ‘I was shown this year,’ he says, ‘for the first time, a new kind of porcelain which is now in fashion. It is of a colour approaching olive, and is called Lung-chuan.’ The colour of the glaze is given by the same yellow earth that is used for the or bruni glaze, and it is often highly crackled. With this statement we may compare the account which he gives in another part of his second letter of the revival of the manufacture of archaic wares. ‘The Mandarin of King-te-chen, who honoured me with his friendship, made presents to his protectors at the court of pieces of old porcelain [sic] which he has the talent to make himself. I mean that he has found the art of imitating the ancient ware, or at least that of a considerable age, and he employs a number of workmen with this object. The material of these false antiques (Chinese Ku-tung) is a yellowish earth brought from the Ma-an mountains. They are very thick—a plate which the Mandarin gave me was ten times the usual weight. The peculiarity of this ware is the glaze made from a yellowish rock, which becomes sea-green on firing.’ This change of colour, of course, was the result of a reducing flame, but note the keen observation of the