CHINA
curing pieces of Chinese ware specially manufactured to suit European taste. They had found this device successful in the case of Japanese Imari porcelain, and they gave orders to the Chinese potters—whose industry was then at the zenith of the revival inaugurated in the reign of Kang-hsi (1662—1722)—for specimens decorated with the arms of France and noble families. Shapes and models were also furnished, and it is probable that many valued examples preserved in European collections are of this hybrid nature. Chinese writers also state that much of the porcelain sold to foreign merchants was expressly made with a view to its market, and was accordingly called Yang-ki, i.e. ware of the outer seas, or ware for exportation. Western traders, of course, concerned themselves only to procure marketable pieces in ample quantity. Nothing is more unlikely than that they made any attempt to search for choice old specimens, which, as is known from Chinese writers, commanded a deterrent price in the Middle Kingdom itself, and would certainly not have been appreciated in Europe. At the time of the export of the Cambron ware the factories at Ching-tê-chên were in a state of temporary decadence. Their productions were comparatively coarse, depending rather upon profusion of decoration and bright colours than upon technical excellence. There can be little question that the majority of the so-called Cambron ware was comparatively inferior heavy porcelain decorated with blue under the glaze and with red, gold, and green enamels over it. One may indeed go so far as to say that practically all the Chinese porcelain brought to Europe up to the third quarter of the seventeenth century was blue-and-white, or of the coarse enam-
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