XV
CHINESE
CRACKLE
CHAPTER XV
CHINESE CRACKLE
VASES MOUNTED IN ORMOLU. JONES COLLECTION, VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM. TWO CRACKLE VASES AND ONE IN COLOURED ENAMELS.
The crackle porcelain is a distinct class, though it will be found that many of the pieces having a single glaze are also crackled. They are covered with a clay or enamel which having been burnt in the kiln is taken out and subjected to the action of a current of cold air, or they are dipped in cold water, so that by unequal contraction cracks are formed with a regularity which, although in the first place accidental, became, in the skilful hands of the Chinese, science. Small crackles like the herring's roe, and large crackles like the ice cracks, could be produced by the potter as he chose. The cracks were filled with Indian ink, red or black, which made them stand out clearly. By further burning, possibly at a lower temperature, the entire surface seems to be covered with a clear glaze quite transparent, which to the touch offers no unequalities of surface. These wonderful potters have so far pushed this unique form of decoration, never successfully imitated in Europe, that it became one of the most important and striking means of decoration. Some of their work in this direction is marvellous and shows successive bands of enamel or glaze, crackled, self-colour and white all in one piece. Other pieces show a crackled network of two tints. Some of our English potters are making good attempts to imitate the fine old Chinese "famille verte," and surely for crackled porcelain there is still inspiration to be drawn from the East. The glaze was of white or coloured; the body was somewhat coarse in paste, resembling red or white stoneware. History takes us back to the Sung dynasty, when this kind of ware was first known, and the accidental discovery was converted into an exact method of working. A pretty form of crackle resembles the scales of a trout, and is by the French called truité. All the colours that were employed as single glazes in that class seem to have been similarly employed as crackle glazes, with the possible exception of red, which did not lend itself to this process; all the Celadon shades and the blues, including turquoise-blue. The most celebrated crackle is that known as apple-green crackle. This ware has, in addition to the beautiful effect of the crackling, a lovely soft tint of green, which was applied as the glaze.
XVI
BLUE
UNDER
THE GLAZE
CHAPTER XVI
BLUE UNDER THE GLAZE. NANKIN BLUE
Many collectors are immensely attracted by what is known as the old blue and white. It is such a widely distributed product, extending over a long series of reigns. We noted before that it reached its highest excellence in the Kang-he period. It was at first reserved for the Court, for Emperors and high dignitaries, but since Kang-he's reign blue and white may be said to belong to all dates, and the blue and white ginger jars of the present time which may be bought for one or two guineas show how the demand has been a constant one throughout the whole of the time. At a very early period after the Dutch had imported this blue and white from China their potters set about imitating it and produced the fine old blue and white delft which is now valuable, but there is no specimen of delft which reaches anything like the price of the old Chinese blue and white from which it was copied. The honorific inscriptions, the sacred emblems, the immortals and their attendants were quite meaningless to the mind of the Dutch potter, just as they were to the Italian, who was also an Oriental copyist. To the Oriental the decoration of each piece meant something, something it may be of their history or of their religion. High thoughts were set out as inscriptions, and inspirations were given by the story on the vase or dish, which when represented on a European copy became only a scheme of decoration, or at its best a germ from which an original scheme of native work might have its birth. So the Dutch, though they at first made delft ware in servile imitation of Chinese patterns, soon saw their way to utilise purely Dutch designs and with these to produce work as fine as that which they had made under the inspiration of the Chinese model.