CHINA
it scarcely ranks as high as the snowy wax-like white of the choicest Kai-pien. The decoration should always be finely and strongly executed, and the closer the blue approximates to the typical brilliancy and purity of the Mohammedan mineral, the higher the rank of the specimen. The glaze should be as smooth as velvet to the touch, and the crackle must not be so strong as to constitute a striking feature. No large examples of soft-paste blue-and-white Hsuan-yao or Chêng-hwa-yao are known to exist. The pieces depicted in H’siang's "Illustrated Catalogue" are of diminutive size, and the collector may safely regard them as typical.
Of the ordinary hard-paste blue-and-white Chêng-hwa porcelain, there is not much to be said. It has virtually no place in the Western collector’s field, for the only surviving specimens of it are a few plates, bowls, censers, and so forth. It presents, however, one interesting feature. In its decoration white designs on a blue ground are found; the fore-runners of the celebrated "Hawthorn Pattern," so much prized in Europe and America to-day. The style may have existed before, but there is no evidence of the fact. It makes its first known appearance on undoubtedly genuine specimens af Chêng-hwa porcelain. Not yet, indeed, had the idea been developed of the "Hawthorn Pattern" proper—that is to say, branches and blossoms of white plum ina blue field. What appears is a clouded blue ground with floral subjects, birds and so forth, in white. Very soon, however, the typical "Hawthorn" was produced, as Japanese evidence shows. Within forty years of the expiration of the Chêng-hwa era, the potteries at Ching-tê-chên were visited by a Japanese expert, Gorodayu
118
