Catalogue of the Morgan Collection of Chinese Porcelains, Issues 1-2Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1907 - 194 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
10½ inches 14 inches 4½ inches aubergine bamboo band base BEAKER birds BLACK HAWTHORN border BOWL bright brilliant blue brilliant enamels bulbous neck butterflies celadon centre ceramic art Ch'êng-hua Ch'ien-lung Ch'ing Chia-ching chimæra China Chinese porcelain chrysanthemum cobalt covered crackled CUP AND SAUCER CYLINDRICAL VASE deep green Diameter 8 inches diaper dragons egg-shell emblems emperor enamel colors enclosing flowers figures floral decoration floral ornament flowering plants foliated four glaze GLOBULAR BOTTLE gold Han dynasty Height 14 Height 6½ Height 8 inches HEXAGONAL imperial jade ju-i heads K'ang-hsi lady landscapes leaf lion lotus flowers Mark medallions Ming dynasty nien chih OCTAGONAL OVOID JAR OVOID VASE painted panels PEAR-SHAPED peonies petuntse pieces pierced pottery Powder-blue prunus purple QUADRILATERAL reign relief reserves containing reserves enclosing rocks rose scroll leaves Shou shoulder sprays of flowers spreading lip Sung swastika Taoist VASE with short Wan-li White porcelain white reserves yellow ground Yung-chêng
Popular passages
Page liii - Arranged to meet the requirements of the Syllabus of the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education, South Kensington.
Page li - As blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper, and as resonant as a musical stone of jade.
Page xxxv - Many other notices from travellers of the 14th and loth centuries might be cited. It was probably through Egypt that it reached Europe ; at any rate a present of porcelain vases was sent by the Sultan of Egypt in 1487 to Lorenzo de' Medici. To the Portuguese is no doubt due the first direct importation of Chinese wares into Europe, in which they were followed by the various India Companies of Holland, England, France, Sweden, &c.
Page xlvii - ... with one measure of the liquid lime. Seven or eight ladles of petuntse with three or two ladles of lime were used for the glazes of the middle class. With petuntse and lime in equal proportions, or with lime predominating, the glaze was described by him as fit only for coarse ware. The glaze of Chinese porcelain always contains lime. It is the lime which gives it a characteristic tinge of green or blue...
Page xxvii - ... from the lengths of the reigns, the cyclical days of eclipses of the sun and moon, and other data recorded in the annals. It has been shown that the cycle of sixty was used only for days at this time, not for years. The early dates must be consequently taken as only approximative, since it is not till the accession of Hsiian Wang (BC 822) that there is a general agreement in the native sources. From this year downwards the Chinese dates may be accepted with every confidence. The Chou dynasty...
Page xxxviii - Bird-like I fly, and flying sing, To flowery kingdoms of Cathay, And bird-like poise on balanced wing Above the town of King-te-tching, A burning town, or seeming so, — Three thousand furnaces that glow Incessantly, and fill the air With smoke uprising, gyre on gyre, And painted by the lurid glare, Of jets and Hashes of red fire.
Page xlvi - Hard paste, containing only natural elements in the composition of the body and the glaze. 2. Soft paste, where the body is an artificial combination of various materials, agglomerated by the action of fire, in which the compound called a frit has been used as a substitute for a natural rock. No soft paste porcelain, as here defined, has ever been made in China, so that it need not be referred to further. All Chinese porcelain is of the hard paste variety. The body consists essentially of two elements...
Page l - They have in China a very fine clay with which they make vases which are as transparent as glass; water is seen through them. These vases are made of clay.
Page xliv - The glazes used in the decoration of this pagoda are five in number ; a deep purplish blue derived from a compound of cobalt and manganese silicates, a rich green from copper silicate, a yellow, approaching the tint of the yolk of an egg, from antimony, a sang de...
Page xlvi - Porcelain is the generic term employed to designate all kinds of pottery to which an incipient vitrification has been imparted by firing.