[385] See p. 224, No. 25.
[387] See p. 224, No. 27.
[388] See p. 225, No. 36.
[389] T’ao shuo, bk. i., fol. 15 verso.
[390] See p. 225, No. 49. Fo-lang, fa-lang, fu-lang, and fa-lan are used indiscriminately by the Chinese in the sense of enamels on metal.
[391] In the T’ao lu, under the heading Yang tz’ŭ. It is a curious paradox that the Chinese called famille rose porcelain yang ts’ai (foreign colours) and the Canton enamels yang tz’ŭ (foreign porcelain). See Burlington Magazine, December, 1912, “Note on Canton Enamels.”
[392] See pp. 224–226, Nos. 29, 37, 38, 49, 51, 53, and 54.
[393] Apart from the rose pinks which are derived from purple of cassius, i.e. precipitate of gold, and the opaque white derived from arsenic, the colouring agents of the famille rose enamels are essentially the same as those of the famille verte. The colours themselves were brought to Ching-tê Chên in the form of lumps of coloured glass prepared at the Shantung glass works. These lumps were ground to a fine powder and mixed with a little white lead, and in some cases with sand (apparently potash was also used in some cases to modify the tones), and the powder was worked up for the painter’s use with turpentine, weak glue, or even with water. Cobaltiferous ore of manganese, oxide of copper, iron peroxide, and antimony were still the main colouring agents. The first produced the various shades of blue, violet, purple, and black; the second, the various greens; the third, coral or brick red; and the fourth, yellow of various shades. A little iron in the yellow gave the colour an orange tone.
The modifications of the green are more numerous. The pure binoxide of copper produced the shade used for distant mountains (shan lü), which could be converted into turquoise by the admixture of white. The ordinary leaf green was darkened by strengthening the lead element in the flux and made bluer by the introduction of potash in the mixture. Combined with yellow it gave an opaque yellowish green colour known as ku lü (ancient green); and a very pale greenish white, the “moon white” of the enameller, was made by a tinge of green added to the arsenious white.