Porcelain

by Edward Dillon

PLATE XIV. JAPANESE, IMARI WARE, BLUE AND WHITE WITH GOLD

narrator. ‘When completed the pieces are boiled in a very greasy soup, and then left for a month or more in the most foul drain that can be found. After this process they may claim to be three or four hundred years old, and to date from the dynasty preceding the Ming. They resemble the real antiques in not giving a ringing note when struck.... They have brought me from the débris of a large shop a little plate which I value more than the finest porcelain made a thousand years ago. On it is painted a crucifix between the Holy Virgin and St. John. Such pieces were made formerly for Japan, but they have not been in demand for the last sixteen or seventeen years.’ These plates, he thinks, were smuggled into that country mixed with other goods, for the use of the native Christians. (Cf. the Japanese dish, [Pl. xiv].)

The account given by the Père D’Entrecolles of the firing of porcelain is so detailed and accurate that it forms an interesting commentary on what we have said in a former chapter on this subject.[81] We have first a description of the man who carries the unbaked ware to the furnace, ranged on two long narrow planks. Balancing these on his shoulders, he threads his way through the narrow streets, for the furnaces, as we have seen, may often be a long way from the factory. He goes on to say, ‘the place where the furnaces are presents another scene. In a kind of vestibule in front of the kilns are seen heaps of clay boxes destined to contain the porcelain.’ These, of course, are the ‘seggars’ already described. Each piece of porcelain of any size has its own case. The smaller pieces are packed many together in one seggar. On the bottom of each of these cases is a layer of sand covered with a little powdered kaolin. Each seggar forms the cover to the one below it, and so the whole furnace is filled with these great piles of cases each packed with porcelain. ‘By favour of this thick veil the beauty, and if I may so express myself, the complexion of the porcelain is not tanned by the ardour of the fire.’ The workman, without touching the fragile raw pieces, rapidly transfers them to the furnace by means of a flexible wooden fork. There are six inches of coarse gravel in the bottom of the furnace, and on this rest the piles of seggars. The middle range is at least seven feet high, the two lowest seggars in each pile being left empty, as is also the one on the top. The middle of the furnace is reserved for the finest porcelain, while near the front are the pieces made with a more fusible paste. The piles of seggars are strengthened by being battened together with clay, but it is the first duty of the fireman to see that there is a free passage of air. The seggars are made in a large village a league from King-te-chen, with a mixture of three kinds of clay.

The furnaces, he tells us, which are now of larger dimensions than formerly, are built over a capacious arched vault, and the hearth or fireplace extends across the whole width of the front of the furnace. It would seem that the process of firing is carried on more rapidly than in former days, and to economise fuel and time the smaller pieces at any rate are taken out a few hours after the extinction of the fire. Sometimes on opening the furnace the whole contents, both seggars and porcelain, are found to be reduced to a half-melted mass as hard as a rock. A change in the weather may alter in a moment the action of the fire, so that a hundred workmen are ruined to one who succeeds and is able to set up a crockery shop.

The ware made in European style finds no favour with the Chinese, and if not accepted by the export merchants remains on the maker’s hands.

We are told of the marvellous tours de force executed in porcelain, some years ago, for the heir-apparent, especially of certain open-work lanterns[82] and strange musical instruments. We see from this at how early a date the future emperor (Yung-cheng) showed an interest in porcelain. The Chinese, it is said, succeed above all in grotesques and in figures of animals; the workmen make ducks and tortoises that float on the water. They make, too, many statues of Kwan-yin,—she is represented holding a child in her arms, and in this form is invoked by sterile women who wish for children.

The mandarins, he continues, who appreciate the talents of Europeans for ingenious novelties, have sometimes asked me to procure for them from Europe new and curious designs, so that they may have something singular to present to the emperor.[83] On the other hand, the Christian workmen strongly urged me to do no such thing. For the mandarins do not yield so easily as our merchants when told that a proposed work is impracticable. Many are the bastinados given to the men before the official will abandon the design from which he hoped so much profit.

‘What becomes of the vast accumulation of potsherds, both from the seggars and from the firings?’ the writer finally asks. Mixed with lime, they are largely used to form a cement with which the walls of gardens and roads are constructed. They also help to build up the new ground which is reclaimed from the banks of the river. Carried down thence by the floods, they form a glittering pavement for many miles below the town.