CHINA
MONOCHROMATIC WARES
specimens. It may be confidently asserted that all the highly valued yellows of the Hung-chth and later Ming epochs were of the transparent type. There do indeed survive pieces undoubtedly from the kilns of that dynasty which, though of fine, delicate porce- lain, have their colour in the form of a thin wash applied after the biscuit had been baked. But these are to be placed in an entirely inferior grade. The specimens depicted in H’siang’s Catalogue belonged beyond question to the former class, though of course their distinguishing characteristic of shell-like trans- lucidity does not appear in the illustrations. The manufacture of this fine yellow continued throughout the industrially active eras of the Ming dynasty. Even as late as the Wan-/t period (1578-1619) excellent specimens were produced, having the year-mark writ- ten in deep, full-bodied blue under the glaze. But the manufacture of yellow monochromes seems to have been very limited. In the imperial porcelain requisitions for the years 1529 (C/za-ching era) and 1573 (Wan-k era), among a multitude of other wares such monochromes are mentioned only twice: in the former year “ boxes with dragons and phenixes en- graved under a yellow glaze,” and in the latter “ tea- cups yellow inside and out, with clouds, dragons, and fairy flowers faintly engraved under the paste.” Yel- low, when specified elsewhere, appears as an enamel, being used to paint dragons, phenixes, and floral scrolls surrounded by blue or brown grounds, or itself forming a ground surrounding designs in blue, or a field for coloured enamels.
It need scarcely be said that genuine examples of yellow monochromes dating from the Ming dynasty are almost unprocurable. But from the Kang-Asi era
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