PORCELAIN DECORATED
tone. It may, in short, be stated with regard to all the decorated porcelains dating from the final reigns of the Ming dynasty that they are distinguished by strength of colour. A brief acquaintance with genuine specimens enables the amateur to recognise these porcelains with tolerable certainty, for in no era, previous or subsequent, did the potter succeed in imparting to his sous-couverte blue a more distinctly encaustic character. It seems as though the colour were veritably burned into the pâte, and since the glaze is exceptionally solid and lustrous, the ultimate effect is one of softness and strength very admirably combined. For purposes of room decoration in Western houses the blue-and-white porcelains of Lung-ching and Wan-li possess special merits, since they adapt themselves to almost any situation. In order to bring out the noble glow and richness of Kang-hsi Hawthorns it is essential that they be placed in a full clear light: the more directly the sun strikes on them, the greater the brilliancy, glow, and warmth of their effect. The delicate richness of fine Kang-hsi and Yung-ching pieces, though not of the Hawthorn class, are scarcely less dependent on the light they receive. But the Lung-ching and Wan-li blues stand effectively in any nook or corner: even in a sombre atmosphere their decorative strength is not to be subdued.
In the Tao-lu the name of a celebrated keramist, Tsui, is recorded as having flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century. He is said to have excelled in imitating the blue-and-white soft-paste porcelain of the Hsuan-tê and Chêng-hwa eras. His fidelity as a copyist extended, of course, to the marks on his originals. Few as are the names of Chinese keramic experts remembered by posterity, fewer still
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