CHINA
PORCELAINIDECORATED
gested as a device to replace excellence of pate and glaze. Sometimes, however, it is combined with decoration of the most elaborate and minute descrip- tion.
The bottoms of Yung-ching and Chien-/ung enamelled porcelains are always carefully finished on the wheel and glazed. Their péfe is fine and pure, but, in later specimens, seems a little more chalky and porous than Kang-hsi biscuit. Year-marks in seal-character are used in the great majority of cases. It may be noted also that the habit of gilding the rim of a piece does not appear to have been practised before the C/ien-/ung era, and even then was seldom resorted to in the case of very choice specimens. The custom became common in proportion as the potter developed a tendency to rely on decorative profusion rather than on technical excellence. Wares with polychromatic decoration manufactured during the present century are, for the most part, thus distinguished.
Special reference must be made to a very lovely and effective method of using egg-shell porcelain of the hard-paste type, namely, in the manufacture of lamp-shades or lamp-globes. Specimens of that na- ture were comparatively rare, their use being, of course, limited to houses of very wealthy persons. Numbers were found in the celebrated Summer Pal- ace, at Yuen-min-yuen, which was rifled of its treas- ures and burned to the ground by the French and English invaders of China forty years ago. These choice examples of the potter’s skill seem to have been ruthlessly destroyed by the ignorant soldiery. Occasionally, however, a similar piece may be pro- cured from one of the great dealers in Peking. The biscuit is as thin as glass and the decoration is elabo-
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