Of the celebrated Ting Chou wares only the fine ivory white Ting (fên ting) was copied at the Imperial factory; but this does not preclude the reproduction of the other kind, the creamy crackled t’u-ting, in the other potteries. There are, at any rate, many lovely porcelains in both styles which appear to belong to the Yung Chêng and early Ch’ien Lung periods. Coloured glazes with crackle and crackled grey-white of the Ko type were made in great quantity, and most of the choicer crackles in our collections, especially those of antique appearance but on a white and neatly finished porcelain body, date from this time.
The reproductions of Ming monochromes include the underglaze red and the purplish blue as in the previous reign, and the eggshell and pure white of the Yung Lo and Hsüan Tê periods. The purplish blue or chi ch’ing of this time is illustrated by a large dish in the British Museum which is further enriched with gilding. It is covered with a splendid deep blue of slightly reddish tinge, varying depth and rather stippled appearance, and it was found in Turkey, where this colour has been much prized. Turquoise green, aubergine purple and yellow of the demi-grand feu, and the lustrous brown (tzŭ chin) in two shades, brown and yellow, are all mentioned in the Imperial list as used with or without engraved and carved designs under the glaze.
As for the K’ang Hsi porcelains it may be assumed that practically all their glaze colours were now reproduced. A few only are specified in the list, eel yellow, snake-skin green, spotted yellow, soufflé red, soufflé blue (powder blue) and mirror black (wu chin). The term soufflé red may refer to the underglaze red from copper or the overglaze iron red. The latter is further subdivided into mo hung or ta hung, the deep red of Ming origin, and the tsao’rh hung or jujube red, a softer and more vitreous[411] variety of the same colour which Dr. Bushell considered to have originated in the Yung Chêng period. On the soufflé red under the glaze we may quote Bushell’s remarks[412]: “Two of the colours especially characteristic of the Nien yao or 'Nien porcelain’ of this epoch are the clair de lune or yüeh pai, and the bright soufflé copper red.” The latter is further described on a vase in the Walters collection “exhibiting the characteristic monochrome glaze of bright ruby red tint, and stippled surface. The soufflé glaze is applied over the whole surface with the exception of a panel of irregular outline reserved on one side, where it is shaded off so that the red fades gradually into a nearly white ground.” This panel was afterwards filled in with a design in overglaze enamels. A tazza in the British Museum has this same red covering three-quarters of the exterior, and fading into the white ground. This red also occurs in its beautiful translucent ruby tints on a pair of small wine cups in the same collection, and on a set of larger cups belonging to Mr. Eumorfopoulos. One would say it was the “liquid dawn” tint of the celebrated wine cups of the late Ming potter, Hao Shih-chiu.
The clair de lune or moon white (yüeh pai), an exquisite glaze of palest blue, is illustrated on Plate [130]. It is often faintly tinged with lavender which bears out its description in the Imperial list[413]: “This colour somewhat resembles the Ta Kuan glaze, but the body of the ware is white. The glaze is without crackle, and there are two shades—pale and dark.” The Kuan glaze, it should be explained, was characterised by a reddish tinge.
In addition to the foreign colours which were capable of being used as monochromes as well as in painted designs, there are a few other new glazes named in the Imperial list. The fa ch’ing (cloisonné blue) which “resulted from recent experiments to match” the deep blue of the enamellers on copper, is identified by Bushell with the dark sapphire blue known as pao shih lan (precious stone blue). It was, we are told, darker and bluer than the purplish chi ch’ing, and it had not the orange peel and palm eye markings of the latter. It has, however, a faint crackle, and is apparently a glaze of the demi-grand feu. We learn elsewhere that this cloisonné blue was one of T’ang-ying’s inventions.
Among the yellows are “porcelain with yellow after the European style” which is identified by Bushell with the opaque lemon yellow enamel introduced at this time, and there are two kinds of mi sê (millet colour) glazes,[414] pale and dark, which we are told “differed from the Sung mi sê.” Bushell’s explanation of the term mi sê given in Monkhouse’s Chinese Porcelain,[415] traverses his rendering of the terms as rice colour in other books: “The Chinese term used here is mi sê, which Julien first translated couleur du riz, and thereby misled us all. It really refers to the colour (sê) of the yellow millet (huang mi), not of rice (pai mi). Mi sê in Chinese silks is a full primrose yellow; in Chinese ceramic glazes it often deepens from that tint to a dull mustard colour when the materials are less pure. It has often been wondered why the old “mustard crackle” of collectors is apparently never alluded to in “L’Histoire des Porcelaines de King-tê-chin.” It is necessary to substitute yellow for “rice coloured” in the text generally, remembering always that a paler tone is indicated than that of the Imperial yellow, which Mr. Monkhouse justly likens to the yolk of an egg.”
In Giles’s Dictionary mi sê is rendered “straw colour, the colour of yellow millet,” and all my inquiries among Chinese collectors as to the tint of the mi sê glaze have led to the same conclusion. One of the Chinese experts indicated a bowl with pale straw yellow glaze of the K’ang Hsi period as an example of mi sê, and this I take to be the mi sê which “differed from the Sung colour,” being, in fact, an ordinary yellow glaze, following the type made in the Ming dynasty, and entirely different in technique from the Sung glazes.
PLATE 120
Covered Jar or potiche painted in famille rose or “foreign colours” (yang ts’ai) with baskets of flowers: deep borders of ruby red enamel broken by small panels and floral designs. On the cover is a lion coloured with enamels on the biscuit. From a set of five vases and beakers in the collection of Lady Wantage. Late Yung Chêng period (1723–1735)