Ming glazes were thick and usually applied before baking. Foot rims are plain, without grooves or beading as later on K'ang Hsi wares. Body is dose grained, white and fine texture; the edge of the foot is bare of glaze and the baking has given it a brown color. Ming vases have thick, massive body; forms favor 'double gourd,' square body and gourd-shaped nedc, bottles of globular body and tapering neck, melon-shaped pots with lobed sides, ovoid jars. Other pieces are barrel-shaped garden seats, porcelain plaques for furniture inlays, screens. Dishes have saucer-shape usually.
The noted Fotkien or white porcelain ware was made at Te-hua Hsien. It is the blanc de Chine of the collector. Body is clear white, very translucent, and has satin-like glaze of a cream or ivory whiteness. Many of the i old examples exist, ncluding statues of Kuan yin (goddess of Mercy), Kuan-yu (god- of War) ; Bodhidharma (Apostle of the Bud dhists), Manjusri (Buddhist Trinity), etc. Some pieces have nothing but their plain charm of delicate body and show; others have incised designs; others again have high relief decoration, such as plum, dragons, phoenixes. The latter variety are the least valuable. This ware was made till late into the 18th century and is recently being again reproduced.
Ch'ing Dynasty Little of in terest occurred until the reign of K'ang Hsi (1662-1722). This is the greatest period in Chinese ceramics; it is also the most prolific Three-fourths of the Western collections belong 'to this period. The wonderful Lang yao ware was produced at this time. The red is the sang de bumf so greatly prized by Western collectors. Derived from copper oxide, the secret of production of this marvelous brilliant red glaze has been lost. In spite of the wonder ful control these potters had over the oven's heat, no two pieces of this ware are alike. The green tinged glaze is most desired by native connoisseurs. Other noted glaze colors were: Shi p'i lit (snake-skin green), than yu hump (eel yellow), chi ts'ui (turquoise), huang pan lien (spotted yellow). Their monochrome yel low (chino), brown or purple (tzu), green, souffle red (ch'ui), and soufflé blue were beauti ful. Most honored, generally, by the Western world were the blue-and-whites. The Kai pien-yao or so-called soft paste blue decorated ware has been called a "masterpiece." Another marvel of art and technique is the hard-paste porcelain "egg-shell" ware, thin as paper, nearly as translucid as glass and of waxlike body. Another greatly admired blue-and-white is the "hawthorn pattern" (plum blossom), the Mei, htva-yao. The blue is perfect in lustre, depth and purity. The Dutch and the West India companies carried immense quantities to Europe, mostly a second "export" made-to-order quality of considerable beauty, but the highest class pieces are also found. It was the time of
specialization, when one man painted trees only, another animals alone, another ruins, and speed was demanded of the "export" qualities. The pictorial designs used were innumerable, from court scenes to mythological subjects and flowers. The "hawthorn pattern" was favored for "ginger jar" shapes. Reserve panels were used for romantic scenes and domestic figure subjects, etc. All this blue-and-white is under glaze (cobalt) blue.
China's steatite (soapstone) porcelain has great repute in this period. It is the so-called "soft" porcelain of Western collectors. The substitution of soapstone for kaolin produced a wonderfully light body with a "vellum" sur face just adapted for the delicate, miniature like, brush work paintings done on this ware. Some K'ang Hsi polychromes consist of under glaze blue, red and clay slips and glazes (such as °Nanking" yellow, baked in the grand-feu in one process. An underglaze red, from cop per oxide, was revived from early wares, and assumes irregular effects in the firing: ma roon, sang de &rut, even "peach-bloom" variega tions. An underglaze red style of painting was done now. Another style of polychrome decoration was done in washes of different glaze colors. The "three-color group" (under glaze transparent green, yellow and aubergine) was continued from the Ming style. This same san t'sai (three-color) combination was also done in muffle (enamel) colors.
Certain similarity in color combinations of Chinese wares led the French connoisseur, jacquemart, last century to group them into °families"; thus we get the famine noire, famine verge and famille rose wares. The first is done by overlaying a dull black pigment with transparent green enamel washes, producing a greenish black. The lead of the green flux creates some iridescence on the surface. In this ware we have statues of Buddhist and Taoist deities, demigods, sages and Chinese native figures. In the famille verte group we have combinations of underglaze blue with the onglaze san esai (three-color) and the coral red (iron oxide). The tracing of the design in brown black, all covered with green, forms one type of this gamily.* In another an over glaze blue takes the place of the underglaze. Famille verte is costly and highly prized — even those pieces which are second rate. The motifs are traced in with red or brown black outline and the spaces filled in with washes. The beautiful apple green used is a characteristic of K'ang Hsi pieces. Sometimes the red and blue are absent. Touches of gilt occur.