A COLLECTION OF POWDERED BLUE CHINESE PORCELAIN WILLIAM BENNETT, K.C.V.O. IN THE POSSESSION OF SIR at The manufacture of powdered blue porcelain (bleu fouetté) may be said for practical purposes to have been confined to the middle and later part of the Kang-he period (1661-1722) and perhaps the early years of the reign of Yung-Ching (17231736), after which the art of producing the peculiar mottled or stippled appearance of the blue colouring seems either to have been lost or to have been abandoned. It was, however, made in small quantities at a much earlier period, as some pieces found their way to the Bavarian museum Munich soon after 1570. These early pieces must have been very few in number and were probably regarded as curiosities. The amount produced even in the Kang-he period could not have been large in comparison with the great quantities of other varieties of porcelain manufactured during that time, when the highest degree of excellence was reached in the production of these beautiful Chinese wares. At all events, if the gross amount turned out was large, the quantity of fine pieces made must have been comparatively small, having regard to the scarcity of them now. In the exhibition of coloured Chinese porcelain at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1896 The term 'powdered blue' is understood for the purposes of this article to mean a porcelain in which the powdered blue is the predominating factor, and not a mere incident in its decoration. pow there were only a dozen pieces of dered blue, few being of exceptional merit, in a collection numbering in all 550 specimens. In the Salting collection the variety is represented by a solitary piece of extreme brilliance. The rarity of fine ware of this kind is without doubt mainly due to the difficulty met with in manipulating the pigment, which in order to produce the characteristic mottled appearance of surface was applied to the paste either by passing it through a fine sieve or by blowing it on by means of a blow-pipe. The effect of this mottling is to produce in fine specimens a colour of indescribable depth and richness, approaching in character rather that of a magnificent texture than that of a vitreous surface-an effect differing altogether from that which is associated with the beautiful undulating blues, laid on in clouds, waves, and washes, of fine Nankin on the one hand, and from the uniform and generally uninteresting colouring called mazarine blue on the other. Four varieties of this ware were made; in the first the specimen is decorated wholly in powdered blue; in the second the uniformity of the blue is broken by white panels or 'reserves' decorated with polychrome (famille-verte) enamels; in the third the panels are decorated in blue and white as in fine Nankin; in the fourth variety the blue is relieved directly (ie., without panels) by decorations such as fish, kylins, figures of the immortals, etc., in rouge de fer and other brilliant colourings. The first of these varieties, which is generally rather lavishly decorated with gold, has never been very highly appreciated. By far the most important class is the second, in which the velvety intenseness of the blue forms an admirable frame for the famille-verte decoration in the panels. As a decorative ware the third variety is difficult to surpass when it is really fine; but, unfortunately, fine pieces are rare, because in the ideal specimen the Nankin blue in the panels must be sufficiently strong and pure to bear comparison with the surrounding framework of powdered blue, a condition rarely attained unless the powdered blue is poor in colour, in which case the general value of the specimen is on that account defective. In fact a piece of truly fine quality in powdered blue with Nankin panels is rarely seen. Decoration in gold laid on over the glaze is often freely used in this ware, especially in the whole-colour variety, in which the designs are sometimes very elaborate. In the powdered blue with Nankin panels gold decoration was seldom employed; its occurrence on specimens now should at all events be regarded with suspicion. In the other kinds it was more or less freely used, and the more profusely the gold was applied the poorer very frequently was the quality of the blue; excepting in those beautiful club-shaped and oviform vases of important size which were made quite at the end of the Kanghe period, or perhaps early in that of YungChin, in which the blue of a fine colour is sometimes almost hidden by the superimposed gold pencillings. The reason for the use of gold in these poorer specimens is simple: the velvetlike mottled character of the powdered blue is singularly susceptible of apparent improvement from the lighting up which it receives from the overlaid gold; a very inferior blue of this type is rendered comparatively brilliant to the unpractised eye by the judicious use of gold decorations a fact which at times may tend sadly to the discomfiture of enthusiastic but unwary collectors, especially in connexion with modern forgeries. This porcelain is singularly devoid of marks indicating the date or place of manufacture; it is rare to find such marks on the smaller or cabinet specimens, and many of the larger pieces are also without them; bowls, plates, and dishes, however, as a rule bear marks. This ab sence of marks is a common characteristic in Chinese porcelain generally of the Kanghe period, and is in itself an evidence of the date of manufacture, for a reason which is interesting and shows very clearly the romantic tendency of the Chinese mind. During the Kang-he period the manufacture of porcelain for export to Europe became very important, enormous quantities being made for domestic use as well as for decorative purposes; under these circumstances it was obvious that breakages would be very numerous, and that the broken pieces must be thrown away. Consequently the governor of Ching-Te-Chen, the centre of the pottery manufacture, issued an edict forbidding the use of date marks and texts from sacred and other sources on articles of porcelain, lest the casting away of broken pieces bearing the emperor's name, etc., should lead to their being trodden under foot, or otherwise subjected to indignity. It is due to this edict that many of the finest pieces of the best period of Chinese porcelain either carry no marks at all (excepting, of course, the 'double ring,' which is not in truth a mark, but only the frame in which the mark should be), or bear marks of other periods. In order that a specimen of powdered FIG. 1.-The 'Lien-meou-tan' Mark. blue The collection with which we are now concerned is not large, for the following |