Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/342

ples. As a full-bodied, deep, pure blue, their colour is unsurpassed. There is little if anything to choose between the three eras, Kang-hsi, Yung-ching, and Chien-lung in the case of these porcelains, nor does the amateur run much risk of being deceived. The general tests of good ware are easily applied—close-grained pâte, lustrous uniform glaze, and careful technique.

Azure blue, or Tien-lan, is a colour of much lighter and more delicate tone than that last spoken of. No record exists as to the date of its earliest manufacture. The oldest examples in collections outside China belong to the Kang-hsi era, and it may be assumed with confidence that finer specimens were never produced. They vary in depth of colour. The palest and most delicate have large crackle, and a peculiar transparency of glaze which enables them to be easily distinguished. They are beautiful porcelains, much and deservedly esteemed in China, but they were never produced in large quantity, and the ability to produce them at all with success seems to have been lost after the close of the eighteenth century. Sometimes a glaze of this type is associated with clouds or splashes of blood red.

Lilac monochromes are generally supposed to have had their origin in the typical ware of the Yuan dynasty, described in a preceding chapter under the name of Yuan-tsu. The clair-de-lune glaze, however, which is the choicest variety of the family, occurs first on the inner surfaces of specimens of Sung Chün-yao, and sometimes, indeed, covers the whole piece. It will therefore be more correct to ascribe the conception of this beautiful monochrome to the Sung potters. In the Yuan-tsu it occurs either as a mono-