, which means “sacrificial,” and Bushell[28] explains this “as the colour of the sacrificial cups which were employed by the Emperor in the worship of the Sun.” Hsiang uses the character
which means “massed, accumulated.” And others use the character
which means “sky clearing,” and is also applied to blue in the sense of the “blue of the sky after rain.” In the oft quoted list of the Yung Chêng porcelains we find the item, “Imitations of Hsüan chi hung wares, including two kinds, hsien hung (fresh red) and pao shih hung (ruby red).” There can be little doubt that both these were shades of underglaze red derived from copper oxide, a colour with which we are quite familiar from the eighteenth century and later examples.
For in another context we find the hsien hung contrasted with fan hung, which is the usual term for overglaze iron red, and the description already given of the application of pao shih hung leaves no doubt whatever that it was an underglaze colour. The two terms are probably fanciful names for two variations of the same colour, or perhaps for two different applications of it, for we know that it was used as a pigment for brushwork as well as in the form of a ground colour incorporated in the glaze. The secret of the colour seems to have been well kept, and the general impression prevailing outside the factories was that its tint and brilliancy were due to powdered rubies, the red precious stone from the West which gave the name to the pao shih hung.[29] It is known that in some cases such stones as cornelian (ma nao) have been incorporated in the porcelain glazes in China to increase the limpidity of the glaze. This is reputed to have happened in the case of the Ju yao, but neither cornelian nor ruby could serve in any way as a colouring agent, as their colour would be dissipated in the heat of the furnace. The real colouring agent of the chi hung is protoxide of copper. If there were nothing else to prove this, it would be clear from the fact hinted in the Po wu yao lan that the failures came out a brownish or blackish tint. This colour has always proved a difficult one to manage, and in the early part of the last dynasty, when it was freely used after the manner of the Hsüan Tê potters, the results were most unequal, varying from a fine blood red to maroon and brown, and even to a blackish tint.
The peculiar merits of the Hsüan Tê red were probably due in some measure to the clay of which the ware was composed, and which contained some natural ingredient favourable to the development of the red. At any rate, we are told[30] that in the Chia Ching period (1522–1566) “the earth used for the hsien hung ran short.”
Among the favourite designs[31] expressed in the Hsüan Tê red were three fishes, three fruits,[32] three funguses, and the character fu (happiness) repeated five times.[33] All these are mentioned among the Yung Chêng imitations. A good idea of the fish design is given by a cylindrical vase in the Franks Collection, which is plain except for two fishes in underglaze red of good colour, and rising in slight relief in the glaze. The glaze itself is of that faint celadon green which was apparently regarded as a necessary feature of the Hsüan Tê copies, and which incidentally seems to be favourable to the development of the copper red. The sang de bœuf red of the last dynasty is avowedly a revival of the Hsüan Tê red in its use as a glaze colour. Indeed, certain varieties of the sang de bœuf class are still distinguished as chi hung. The large bowls, “red as the sun and white at the mouth rim,” as mentioned in the Po wu yao lan, have a counterpart in the large bowl of the last dynasty with sang de bœuf glaze, which, flowing downwards, usually left a colourless white band at the mouth.
The Hsüan Tê period extended only to ten years, and specimens of Hsüan red are excessively rare to-day, even in China. It is doubtful if a genuine specimen exists outside the Middle Kingdom, but with the help of the old Chinese descriptions and the clever imitations of a later date,[34] there is no difficulty in imagining the vivid splendours of the “precious stone red” of this brilliant period.