Fig. 1.—Bottle of gourd shape with slender neck: powder blue ground with gilt designs from the Hundred Antiques (po ku) and borders of ju-i pattern, formal flowers and plantain leaves. Height 7½ inches.
Fig. 2.—Bottle-shaped Vase with famille verte panels of rockwork and flowers reserved in a powder blue ground. Height 7 inches. Salting Collection.
It was used indifferently as a simple monochrome or as a ground in which panel decoration was reserved, the panels painted in famille verte enamels or in blue and white; and in both cases the blue surface was usually embellished with light traceries in gold. Plate [110] illustrates both types. Both are highly prized by collectors, and change hands at high prices when of the good quality which is usual on the K’ang Hsi specimens. We have already noted[334] the occasional decoration of the powder blue ground with designs in famille verte enamels, and Père d’Entrecolles[335] records another process of ornamentation which was applied to all the blue grounds of this group, viz. the washed, the sponged, and the powder blues: “There are workmen who trace designs with the point of a long needle on this blue whether soufflé or otherwise; the needle removes as many little specks of dry blue as are necessary to form the design; then the glaze is put on.” From this precise description it is easy to recognise this simple but effective decoration. There are two examples in the British Museum with dragon designs etched in this fashion, the one in a washed blue, and the other in a sponged blue ground. The pattern appears in white outline where the blue has been removed by the needle and the porcelain body exposed.
Long usage has given sanction to the term “mazarine blue.” It was applied to the dark blue ground colour of eighteenth century English porcelain, and in the contemporary catalogues the name “mazareen” was given to any kind of deep blue from the mottled violet of Chelsea to the powdery gros bleu of Worcester. In reference to Chinese porcelain it is used to-day with similar freedom for the ta ch’ing or dark sky blue and for the powder blue. Assuming that the phrase derives from the famous Cardinal Mazarin, it cannot in its original sense have had any reference to powder blue, for the Cardinal died in 1661, and, if he had a weakness for blue monochrome, it must have been for some variety of the chiao ch’ing or blue glazes proper which were current at the end of the Ming and the beginning of the Ch’ing dynasties. At the present day it is impossible to guess the true shade of mazarine blue, and we must be content to regard it as a phrase connoting a deep blue monochrome the exact definition of which has gone beyond recall.[336]
The K’ang Hsi mark is sometimes found on porcelain coated with a very dark purplish blue glaze with soft looking surface and minute crackle. It is apparently one of those glazes which are fired in the temperate parts of the kiln, and its use is more frequent on porcelains of a slightly later period.
Finally, the turquoise blue, variously named fei ts’ui (kingfisher blue) and k’ung ch’iao lü (peacock green), was freely used as a monochrome on figures and ornamental wares. It is a colour which descends from Ming times, and whose use has continued unchecked to the present day, so that it is often extremely difficult to give a precise date to any particular specimen, especially if the object happens to be of archaic form, a copy of an old bronze or the like. Its nature has already been discussed[337] among the Ming glazes, and one can only say that the K’ang Hsi pieces have all the virtues of the K’ang Hsi manufacture—fine material, good potting, shapely form, and beautiful quality of colour. The tint varies widely from the soft turquoise blue of kingfisher feathers to a deep turquoise green, and some of the most attractive specimens are mottled or spotted with patches of greenish black. The glaze is always minutely crackled, and has sufficient transparency to allow engraved or carved designs on the body to be visible. It is a colour which develops well on an earthen body, and the potters often mixed coarse clay with the ware which was intended to receive the turquoise glaze; but this, I think, was mainly practised after the K’ang Hsi period, and the K’ang Hsi specimens will, as a rule, be found to have a pure white porcelain basis.
As in the Ming wares, the turquoise sometimes shares the field with an aubergine purple of violet tone, both colours being of the demi-grand feu. The purple is also used as a monochrome. There are, in fact, two aubergine purple monochromes, the one a thick and relatively opaque colour sometimes full of minute points as though it had been blown on like the powder blue, the other a thin transparent (and often iridescent) glaze of browner tone. Both are derived from cobaltiferous ore of manganese, both have descended from the Ming period, and have already been discussed as monochromes and as colours applied to the biscuit.
PLATE 111
Two examples of Single-colour Porcelain in the Salting Collection (Victoria and Albert Museum)