Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/299

in the form of floral scrolls and bands of leaves. Much of the beauty of such ware depends on delicacy of technique and lustre of glaze. Pieces satisfying a high standard in both these respects fully deserve the admiration lavished on them. They are not uncommon in China, but really fine examples have always commanded high figures. Not infrequently the glaze of a specimen otherwise excellent lacks lustre and brilliancy without acquiring compensatory softness. Such pieces cannot, of course, be placed in the first rank of their kind.

Foreign collectors often apply the term Ting-yao to hard-paste porcelain with incised decoration. After what has been written above, the reader need scarcely be told that this is a misnomer. Hard-paste porcelain with incised decoration is known as Chu-hwa-khi in China; a name which, though so far as its meaning goes it might reasonably be used of any ware thus decorated, has come to be applied distinctively to the hard-paste variety. Vases with decoration in relief are known as Tui-hwa-ki.

M. d'Entrecolles, speaking of steatite as a substance employed for decorating porcelain in bas-relief, says that after the mineral has been purified it is made into little bricks. The workman then dissolves one of these in water, forming a liquid of some consistency. Into this he dips his brush, and traces various designs upon the surface of the pâte, which is then left to dry and subsequently covered with glaze. "When the porcelain is stoved," M. d'Entrecolles adds, "these designs appear of a different white from the body of the piece. The effect produced is as though a subtile vapour had crept over the surface. The white of steatite is called 'ivory-white.'" With