Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/201

productions of the imperial factory attained their highest point of excellence. Tang was especially ordered by the Emperor to design plaques representing the various processes of porcelain manufacture, and to accompany them by detailed explanations. The result was twenty-two plaques, in connection with which a celebrated Chinese author wrote of Tang:—'Alone he deliberated on the flower and the fruit (that is to say, on the brilliant and solid qualities of porcelain), and his individual genius supplied all the resources he required. He renewed the manufacture, long interrupted, of jars decorated with dragons (i.e. monster vases for gold fish) and wares of Chün (vide Chün-yao of the Sung dynasty) and revived the processes of ancient experts.'" All these eulogies, though well merited on the whole, must be taken with reserve so far as regards blue-and-white porcelain. Speaking technically, the Chien-lung potters were not less expert than those of Kang-hsi and Yung-ching in any direction. Their pâtes were just as fine and hard, their glazes as_brilliant and their decorative designs as happy. They continued to manufacture the delicate and beautiful Kai-pien-yao and hard-paste egg-shell with unsurpassed skill. Yet in one important respect their blue-and-white ware showed inferiority. The quality of the blue was not so pure. Whether a less choice mineral was used or whether the processes of preparing it—and this hypothesis seems scarcely tenable—had deteriorated, there can be little doubt that the Chien-lung blue stands almost in the same relation towards the Kang-hsi and Yung-ching colour as that occupied by the Wan-li blue of the Ming dynasty in comparison with its prede-