CHINA
The potters conceived the idea of employing this stone instead of kaolin. It is named Hwah (soapy) because it is unctuous and in some degree resembles soap. Porcelain made with steatite is rare and much dearer than the other. It has an extremely fine grain, and for purposes of painting it is to ordinary porcelain pretty much what vellum is to paper. Moreover, its lightness appears astonishing to a hand accustomed to other porcelains. It is also much more fragile than common ware, and there is difficulty in obtaining the right temperature in baking it. Some experts do not use steatite for the porcelain mass. They content themselves with making a solution of it into which they plunge the ware when the latter is dry, in order that the body of the piece may become coated with the mineral before receiving the decoration and the glaze. A certain degree of beauty is thus acquired.
The conspicuous fault of a vast majority of blue-and-white porcelains is that the body of the piece has a watery, bluish tint, offering a weak and unsatisfactory contrast to the colour of the decoration. But in the ware now discussed the pure white of the wax-like covering applied to the pâte constitutes an inimitable field for the blue decoration, which stands out with dazzling brilliancy and distinctness and is yet charmingly soft. The manufacture of such ware involved much labour. The pâte having been prepared with great care and worked down to almost wafer-like thinness, had to be sun-dried until it became tough enough to handle. It was then dipped in a solution of kaolin or steatite, and set once more to dry. Either of these drying processes might have been easily accomplished in the kiln. But the Chinese potter did not stove his pieces before applying the decoration sous couverte and the glaze. He preferred to take the trouble of drying them for months,
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