Many of these figures are very ably executed; they stand firm and erect; and the draperies, though here the mannerisms of the ‘calligraphic’ school of painting may be recognised, fall in simple folds from the shoulders. The prevalence of Buddhist types (for the Taoist divinities are here less frequently represented) may be connected with the exceptional predominance of that religion in Fukien, a province somewhat remote from the rest of China, whose inhabitants speak a dialect very different from the standard Chinese.
Some very creditable work seems to be still turned out from the Te-kua district, to judge by the ware that finds its way to the shops of Fuchow. Some enamelled ware appears to have been at one time made in this district. In the British Museum are some small pieces decorated with five colours (among them a blue enamel over the glaze), which on the ground of the nature of the glaze and the paste have been classed as Fukien ware; while from the style of the decoration they would appear to date from the early eighteenth century.
Much white porcelain, both the Feng-ting and the Fukien, was imported into Europe from the end of the seventeenth century, and it forms an important element in old collections. Some of this white ware, at a later time, was decorated with colours in England and elsewhere, giving rise to a class of porcelain that has caused some confusion to collectors.
In China, white porcelain is used in time of mourning, at least that is the case with that supplied to the imperial court.
Unglazed porcelain is comparatively rare in China, but figures of gods or of animals are sometimes found in biscuit, and the little boxes in which crickets are kept for fighting are generally of unglazed ware. Again, where, as in the class of polychrome glazes, the glaze is applied with a brush, some part may be left unglazed; and this practice has survived in the case of the lions and kilins of the famille verte, where we often find the biscuit exposed in parts of the face.
Celadon Ware.—As the white ware of King-te-chen—the Ting—has got its name from the town of Ting-chou where it was first made, so the many varieties of celadon[88] porcelain are connected in the Chinese mind with the town of Lung-chuan, near the southern boundary of the province of Chekiang. We have already given some space to this ware, so important from the cultur-historisch point of view, and we shall have to return to it again when we come to investigate the routes by which the porcelain of China passed in the Middle Ages to other countries. Here we will merely call attention to the later revival of the celadon glazes mentioned in a passage we have quoted from the letters of the Jesuit father. But the highly finished porcelain, with a fine white paste covered with a pale greyish-green glaze of uniform thickness and shade, differs much from the old vases with ‘red mouth and foot.’ There is a remarkably fine specimen in the Wallace collection at Hertford House with chased metal mountings of the time of Louis xv., and other pieces similarly mounted in the Jones collection.
Crackle Ware.—It would only create confusion to make a special class for the many kinds of ware covered with a crackled glaze. It will be remembered that we first came across glazes of this kind when describing the Ko yao, the ‘ware of the Elder Brother,’ and a large class of porcelain with white to yellowish grey glaze, always more or less crackled, is still commonly known as Ko yao in China, so that ‘Crackle ware’ and ‘Ko yao’ are in a measure equivalent terms. Such crackling may vary from a division of the surface into large fissures several inches in length, to the finest reticulation of minute lines hardly visible without a glass. The first the Chinese compare to the cracks of ice, and I think that it is to a variety of crackle with long spindle-shaped divisions that they give the name of ‘crabs claw.’ The finer crackle they know as ‘fish-roe‘—this is the truité of the French. Certain glazes, as the turquoise and the purple of the demi grand feu, are always finely crackled. In other cases the crackling, which is caused, as we have already said (([p. page 32]), by the glaze after solidification contracting more than the subjacent paste, may be produced or modified at the will of the potter by adding various substances to the glaze. A rock that has been identified with steatite has been often mentioned in this connection, and the increase in the shrinkage of the glaze attributed to the magnesia contained in it. Probably, however, a change in the proportion of the silica to the alumina may be enough to bring about a crackled glaze. The following extract from the letters of the Père D’Entrecolles throws some light on this point. He tells us that when the glaze is made of cailloux blancs (probably little else than felspar), without other mixture, we obtain the porcelain called Sui-ki, or ‘shattered ware’ (this is the general Chinese term for crackle), ‘marbled all over with an infinity of veins so as to look like a piece of broken porcelain with the pieces remaining in their places.’ The glaze, we are told, is of a cindery white. We have here a description of the Ko yao, which, however, seems to have been little known in Europe at that time. To this class belong the vases with yellowish grey ground and crackles of medium size. They are often provided with mask handles and detached rings. These handles and rings, as well as some broad bands round the neck, are covered, in imitation of bronze, with a dark, roughened glaze. Another variety of this Ko yao is decorated with scattered patches of white slip, laid on apparently over the crackled glazed surface. On this slip is painted the design in cobalt blue under what is apparently a second glaze. A frequent motif on this ware is found in a series of horses in the strangest of positions. These probably represent the eight famous steeds of the old emperor Mu-wang. Both these classes of Ko yao are in great favour in China and Japan as flower vases. The shapes and decorations are more or less reminiscent of the old bronzes. It would seem that ware of this kind is still manufactured at King-te-chen and perhaps somewhere in the north of China also.
The brown glazes form a very distinct class. The well-known colour has many names: in French fond laque; in Chinese tzu-kin, or ‘burnished gold.’ It is also known as ‘dead leaf,’ but the average tint is perhaps best described as café au lait. The Père D’Entrecolles, in mentioning the tzu-kin, the colour of which he says is given by a ‘common yellow earth,’ states that it was a recent invention in his time. He is perhaps referring to some special tint, for the colour was well known in Ming days. We have already spoken of the possible relation of this colour to the
