Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/432

purposes, which may be called couleurs de demi-grand feu. We find nothing analogous to them in our own colours. To name them, will sufficiently indicate those which we qualify thus. They are: violet, turquoise blue, yellow, and green. . . . While admitting, however, that nothing recalling these productions is made in Europe, we hasten to add that it would be easy to imitate them; for the green and the turquoise blue owe their colours to copper; the yellow is obtained from antimony, and the violet from oxide of manganese slightly cobaltiferous. We are convinced that some synthetical experiments would lead at once to the imitation of these kinds of products. I may add that I prepared, some time ago, fusible colours which can be easily applied to the biscuit of Sèvres porcelain. But as they are stoved at a low temperature, they differ considerably from the colours prepared by the Chinese. Besides, borax enters into their composition.

"The couleurs de moufle claim our attention now, and in order to continue the comparison I have commenced between the porcelain of China and the corresponding European product, I shall briefly recall the colours which compose the palette of potters in Europe, especially at Sèvres. I will say a few words of the principal conditions they must fulfil. It will be easy to appreciate the differences to which I have still to direct attention.

"The colours should be able to attach themselves firmly to the surface of the porcelain, and at the same time to acquire by fusion the vitrification which is an indispensable feature in the éclat of the decoration. They are obtained by mixing either an oxide, or a compound of different colouring metallic oxides,