Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares

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A few examples of the tomb figures are illustrated in the adjoining plates. The tall, slender figure on Plate 7, Fig. 1, seems to represent a lady of distinction. The elaborate head–dress and costume, the necklace and pendant and the belt are all carefully modelled; and the Elizabethan appearance of the collar is curious and interesting. The ware is soft and white like pipeclay, though still caked with the reddish loess clay from which it was exhumed. The style of this figure with its slender proportions is analogous to that of the graceful stone sculptures of the Northern Wei period. The genial monster in white clay and splashed green and yellow glazes illustrated on Plate 7 is one of the many sphinx–like creatures found in the tombs over which they were supposed to exercise a beneficial influence. Sometimes they have human heads on the bull body, and they are then described as t'u kuai or earth–spirits. In the present example we have a form which strongly resembles certain Persian or Sassanian monsters in bronze; and it is highly probable that the idea of this creature came from a western Asiatic source.

Plate 5 shows a fine example of a horse in coloured glazes, a fierce figure in warrior's guise, who is, no doubt, one of the Lokapalas or Guardians of the Four Quarters in the Buddhist theogony, and a figure of an actor. The amusements, as well as the serious occupations of the dead, were provided for in the furniture of the tombs. A whole troop of mimes in quaint costumes and dramatic poses is shown in the Field Museum at Chicago, and Plate 6 illustrates three seated figures of musicians as well as a standing figure holding a dish of fruit.

A study of the salient features of these and other authenticated specimens leads naturally to the identification of fresh types, and so the series grows.For instance, the type of wine vase with serpent handles is found in glazes of various colours, till of the mottled T'ang kind, and with slight additions, such as the palmette–like ornaments in applied relief on a large example in the British Museum.These ornaments in their turn appear on bowls and incense vases often of globular form, like the well–known Buddhist begging bowl, but fitted with three legs.Splashed, streaked and mottled glazes further declare these to be T'ang, and the varying colour and hardness of their body material give us a deeper insight into the T'ang ware.All of these show the marks of the wheel, and many are neatly finished with simple wheel–made lines and ridges; stamped ornaments in applied relief are their commonest form of decoration.

A fine specimen in the British Museum will serve to illustrate this type of bowl.It has a hard, white body, of typical globular form, with slightly constricted mouth, three legs with strongly modelled lion masks on the upper part, and between them pads of applied relief with lion mask ornaments.The glaze is not of the mottled kind, but is rather streaked; it is deep, cucumber green and minutely crackled, and has run down into drops under the bowl.This fluidity is also the cause of the streakiness of the colour, which was evidently a characteristic feature of the T'ang pottery, for it appears unmistakably indicated in a T'ang painting figured by Sir Aurel Stein.[46] This painting, a silk banner of the T'ang period, was found in a walled–up library at Tun–huang, and depicts a standing Buddhist figure carrying a begging bowl with boldly streaked exterior.

PLATE 8.

Three examples of T'ang ware with coloured glazes: in the Eumorfopoulos Collection.

Fig. 1. —Tripod Incense Vase with ribbed sides; white pottery with deep blue glaze outside encrusted with iridescence. Height 4 ⁵/₈ inches.

Fig. 2. —Amphora of light coloured pottery with splashed glaze. Mark incised Ma Chên–shih tsao ("made by Ma Chên–shih"). Height 8 ¹/₄ inches.

Fig. 3. —Ewer of hard white porcellanous ware with deep purple glaze. Height 4 ³/₄ inches.

In addition to the mottled glazes—which, by the way, are the forerunners of the so–called "tiger–skin" porcelains of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—and the single colours already mentioned, instances have been identified on the principles already indicated of wares with a full yellow glaze and a streaky, brownish yellow.An interesting piece (Plate 8) in the Eumorfopoulos Collection is covered with a deep violet blue glaze on a fine white body.Others, again, have a dark chocolate brown glaze on a reddish buff body, and a rare ewer in the British Museum is distinguished by a deep olive brown glaze flecked with tea green, which seems to anticipate by a thousand years the "tea dust" glazes of the Ch'ien Lung period.[47]

Another variety of T'ang glaze, of which I have seen one example, was an olive brown with large splashes of a light colour, a greyish white, but with surface so frosted over by decay that its original intention remained in doubt. One might say that this was the father of the Japanese Takatori glazes with deep brown under–colour and large patches of frothy white. We may mention here three remarkable specimens found in a grave with a T'ang mirror and described in Man in 1901,[48] which are in the British Museum. One is an oblate ovoid vase, with small neck and mouth, of hard, light buff body, coated with a dull greenish black glaze with minute specks of lighter colour. The others are tea bowls of hard buff ware with dull brick–red glaze, not far removed in colour from the Samian ware of Roman times. No exact Chinese parallel has yet been found to these three pieces, though something approaching them is seen in certain bowls in the Eumorfopoulos collection which have a reddish brown glaze breaking into black, being apparently of the type associated with the name of Chien yao,[49] and which are known in Japan as kaki temmoku. This early kind of temmoku, which was probably made in Honan, has a hard whitish body, and the glaze is sometimes flecked with tea green as well as with golden brown. In some cases, too, a floral design or a leaf has been impressed or stencilled on the black glaze and appears in the brown or green colour (Plate 43, Fig. 1). It is said that a somewhat similar brown temmoku ware was made in Corea as well.

The survival of the leaf green glaze of Han type has already been noted.It occurs in Plates 12 and 13.

A pale bluish green glaze, somewhat akin to a later variety of celadon, appears on a few small bowls and jars which have the characteristic T'ang finish: I have seen several figures of lions with a crackled light greenish brown glaze; and a considerable class of bowls and melon–shaped vases have been found in Shansi with a hard buff stoneware body, coated with white slip under a transparent and almost colourless glaze, the combination producing a solid white or ivory colour (Plate 11, Fig.3).These bowls have been considered by some Chinese authorities to be a production of the Ta Yi[50] kilns in Szechuan, but as there were factories in Shansi,[51] where wares of this type are reputed to have been made in T'ang times, it seems more probable that they are of local make. It should be added that the brown, tea dust, black, celadon and white glazes are high–fired and essentially different from the soft, crackled lead glazes previously described.

Apart from modelling in the round, an art in which we have seen that the T'ang potters excelled, the decorative ornament of the pottery hitherto discussed has been confined to applied reliefs.The processes of carving and engraving come early in the evolution of the potter's art in China, and we should expect to find in the T'ang wares some indications of the skill in these methods for which the Sung potters were so celebrated.Plate 12, Fig.2, illustrates the use of engraved ornament under a green glaze, and the piece is remarkable not only for its elegant design, but for the beautiful lines of its simple form.A few years ago I saw for the first time one or two stands and boxes with patterns intricate as brocade work, floral scrolls, and geometrical designs, engraved with a point, and the spaces filled in with coloured glazes.They were reputed to be of T'ang date, and though no further evidence existed to prove that objects of such advanced technique and mature design really belonged to this remote period the proposition did not seem an impossible one.The textiles, inlaid woodwork, and painted lacquer in the Nara collections have just such designs which at first sight fill one with amazement at their modern feeling.A piece of brocade of undoubted T'ang origin, figured by Sir Aurel Stein,[52] with floral scrolls worked in silk, looks like a piece of late Persian embroidery. And is not the art of the T´ang painters essentially modern in the directness of its appeal?

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The truth is, our knowledge of T´ang pottery has only just begun, and now that the ware is esteemed in Europe at its proper worth, the choicer specimens which have been treasured in China are finding their way westward.Every fresh arrival tells us something new and surprising, and it only wanted such a piece as Fig.1, Plate 10, to establish the identity of the specimens whose T´ang origin we had before only ventured to conjecture.Here we have a form of dish which is found among the tomb wares of the T´ang period, made of the typical T´ang white–body and finished in characteristic fashion and decorated with engraved designs of the most advanced type, filled in with coloured glazes, in addition to bands of mottling in green and white, and yellow and white.There are, besides, other specimens of similar make but with simpler, though scarcely less interesting, design of a mirror–shaped panel formed of radiating lotus leaves engraved in the centre with a stork in white and green, all in a deep violet blue ground.The coloured glazes used in the T´ang polychrome pottery are light and translucent lead glazes of the kind which reappears on the Ming and Ch´ing pottery and porcelain, and, as on the later wares, they are covered with minute accidental crackle.In their splashed and mottled varieties they have, as already noted, a resemblance to the glazes of the eighteenth–century Whieldon ware of Staffordshire, and it is interesting to note that the T´ang potters also used another form of decoration which was much fancied in Staffordshire about a thousand years later.This is the marbling of the ware, not merely by mottling the glaze as in Fig.2 of Plate 9, or by marbling the surface, but by blending dark and light clays in the body as in the "solid agate" ware of Staffordshire.It only remains to prove that painting with a brush was practised by the T´ang potters, and though one is loath to accept such a revolutionary idea without positive proof, there is very good reason to think that such pieces[53] as Fig. 3, Plate 12, belong to the T´ang period. They have a white pottery body, painted in bold floral scroll designs in black under a beautiful green glaze. We are getting used to surprises in connection with T´ang pottery, and probably in a year's time painted T´ang wares, which are now only accepted with reserve, will be an established fact which passes without comment.

Stamped patterns are not uncommon, and we often find small rings or concentric circles, singly, as in Fig.1 of Plate 11, or stamped in clusters of five or seven, forming rosettes[54]; or, again, impressed key fret, as in Fig.1 of Plate 12, which has a deep leaf green glaze.

The influence of the Western Asiatic civilisations has been already mentioned in casual hints, but it appears in concrete form in the peculiar shape of the ewer on Plate 9. The bird–headed vessel is found in Persian pottery of an early date, one example of which may be seen in the British Museum. Another remarkable instance of this form was illustrated and discussed by Dr. Martin in the Burlington Magazine, September, 1912.[55] It had, in addition, applied relief ornaments of a kind which we have already noticed, and Dr. Martin expressed his opinion that both the form and the ornaments are nearly related to Sassanian metal work. The fact that the last Sassanid king sought help from China[56] points to intercourse between the two realms, and in any case the northern trade route through Turkestan into Western Asia gave ample opportunity for the traffic in Persian and Sassanian wares. But more remarkable still is the classical spirit displayed in the piping boy and dancing girl[57] on a wonderful flask in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 18, Fig. 2). The Græeco–Buddhist influence on early Chinese sculpture has already been remarked, and several classical designs are commonly pointed out on the T´ang metal mirrors; but here we have in pottery a figure which might have been taken from a Herculaneum fresco, surrounded by scroll–work worthy of the finest T´ang mirror. The body of the ware is whitish pottery, and the beautifully moulded surface is covered with a brownish green glaze, which, like that of Fig. 1, Plate 12, is clearly a survival of the Han glaze. Other instances might be quoted of Græco–Roman influences reflected in T´ang wares. There are obvious traces of the "egg and tongue" and "honeysuckle" patterns in border designs, and the shapes of vases and ewers often betray a feeling which is more Greek than Chinese.

Reverting to the engraved T´ang ornament, there is a little oblong box in the Kunstgewerbe Museum at Berlin with incised rosettes of prunus blossom form, glazed white and yellow in a green ground and finished almost with the neatness of Ch´ien Lung porcelain, but of undoubtedly T´ang origin.The same prunus design occurs on a typical T´ang bowl, in the Eumorfopoulos Collection, stencilled white in a green ground.I have postponed reference to these pieces because of the bearing of the latter on the decoration of the wonderful figure illustrated in the frontispiece, which will make a fitting climax to our series of T´ang specimens.

This figure, with its stand, measures 50 inches in height, and represents one of sixteen Lohan or Arhats, the Buddhist apostles.Its provenance has been kept discreetly concealed,[58] but we may infer that it was taken from a temple or mausoleum, and we know that there were others with it, two of which were exhibited at the Musée Cernuschi, in Paris, in June, 1913. This one, however, has the advantage over the others of being complete with its pottery stand. The ware is white and comparatively hard; the colourless glaze on the fleshy parts has acquired a brown stain from the dripping of the cave moisture, and developed a minute crackle, both of which features are observable on some of the glazed vases from T'ang tombs; the pupils of the eyes are black. The draperies, of which the flowing folds are worthy of the finest classic sculpture, are glazed with mottled green, the upper robe with brownish yellow, both of T'ang type, and the latter is patched (in true Buddhist fashion) with green–edged bands with white designs resembling divided prunus blossoms in a yellow ground, in style recalling the decoration of the bowl previously mentioned. The technique, then, is that of the T'ang wares, but instead of being made in a mould like the grave statuettes, this monumental figure is modelled in the round by an artist worthy to rank with the masters of sculpture and painting who made the T'ang period famous.

When one looks at the powerful modelling of the head, the strong features composed in deep contemplation, and the restful pose of the seated form, one realises that here, at last, we have the great art which inspired the early Buddhist sculptors of Japan.It is no conventional deity which sits before us.The features are so human as to suggest an actual portrait, but for the supernatural enlargement of the ears in Buddhist fashion.The contracted brows bespeak deep concentration; the eyes, dreamy yet awake, look through and past us into the infinite; the nostrils are dilated in deep breathing; the lips compressed in firm yet compassionate lines.It is the embodiment of the Buddhist idea of abstraction and aloofness; yet it lives in every line, the personification of mental energy in repose.But so rare are examples of this style, that, unless we turn to painted pictures or frescoes such as have been brought back by the recent expeditions in Turfan, we must look in the temples of Japan, not, indeed, for similar Chinese work, but for the Japanese masterpieces in bronze, wood and lacquer, of the same period, which avowedly followed the Chinese art.The Yuima in the Hokkeji nunnery, ascribed to the middle of the eighth century; the portrait figure of the priest Ryoben (✝ 773) in the Todaiji monastery, and the portrait figure of Chisho Daishi (✝ 891) in the Onjoji monastery,[59] are all conceived in the same grand style, and bespeak a kindred art.

But high as this figure ranks as sculpture, it is far more remarkable as pottery.To fire such a mass of material without subsidence or cracking would tax the capabilities of the best equipped modern pottery, while the skill displayed in the modelling is probably unequalled in any known example of ceramic sculpture.The contemporary grave figures hold a high place in ceramic modelling, but this statue is as far above the best of them as Dwight's stoneware bust of Prince Rupert towers above the Staffordshire figurines.Dwight's masterpiece has long been an object of wonder and admiration in the ceramic ante–room in the British Museum, and, with the help of the National Art Collections Fund and of several munificent individuals, the British Museum has been able to acquire this wonderful Chinese figure, which is now exhibited in the King Edward VII.galleries.

It is too early yet to attempt seriously the classification of the T´ang wares under their respective factories. Before this is possible the meagre allusions in Chinese literature must be supplemented by far fuller information. At present our knowledge of the T´ang factories is chiefly drawn from casual references in Chinese poetry and in the Chinese Classic on Tea, the Ch´a Ching, written by Lu Yü in the middle of the eighth century.From this we gather that the Yüeh Chou[60] kilns enjoyed a high reputation. An early allusion to this factory in reference to the "bowls of Eastern Ou" in the Chin dynasty has already been recorded.[61] The author of the Tea Classic tells us that among tea–drinkers the Yüeh bowls were considered the best, though there were some who ranked those of Hsing Chou[62] above them. Lu Yü, however, thought the judgment of the latter connoisseurs was wrong, because the Hsing Chou bowls resembled silver while the Yüeh bowls were like jade, because the Hsing bowls were like snow, the Yüeh like ice, and because the Hsing ware, being white, made the tea appear red, while the Yüeh ware, being green (ch´ing), imparted a green (lü) tint to the tea.The T´ang poet, Lu Kuei–mêng, further tells us that the Yüeh bowls "despoiled the thousand peaks of their blue green[63] colour." Yüeh Chou is the modern Shao–hsing Fu in the province of Chêkiang. It was celebrated in the tenth century for a special ware made exclusively for the princes of Wu and Yüeh, of the Ch´ien family, who reigned at Hung Chou from 907 to 976. This was the pi sê or "secret colour" ware which was made at Yüeh Chou until the Southern Sung period (1127–1279), when the manufacture was removed to Yü–yao.[64] The pi sê[65] ware has caused endless mystification among writers on Chinese porcelain. The name—which means literally "secret colour"—has been taken by some to imply that the colour was produced by a secret process (the most natural but not the generally accepted meaning), and by others that it was a forbidden colour, i.e. only permitted to be used by the princely patrons of the house of Ch´ien.[66] The author of the Ching–tê Chen t´ao lu[67] states that "it resembled the Yüeh ware in form, but surpassed it in purity and brilliance." This is, however, only the opinion of a nineteenth–century writer who does not claim to have seen a specimen of either. A tenth–century writer[68] makes use of the vague expression, "the secret colour preserves the note of the green (ch´ing) ware (tz´ŭ)," which apparently means that the secret–colour glaze did not rob the ware of the musical quality of usual ch´ing ware, implying a difference of some kind between the pi sê and the ch´ing glaze.

Literary references of this kind are open to so many inferences that their value is slight without some tangible specimen to help us to realise their import.This difficulty is greatly increased in dealing with Chinese descriptions because of the ambiguity of Chinese colour words, which is discussed elsewhere.But in the case of Yüeh Chou ware, or at any rate of one kind of it, we have an important clue in another Chinese work. Hsü Ching, who accompanied the Chinese Ambassador to Corea in 1125, in a description of the Corean wares, makes the remark that "the rest of them have a general likeness to the old pi sê ware of Yüeh Chou and the new Ju Chou ware."[69] Fortunately, we can speak with considerable confidence of the Corean wares of this time, many examples of which have been taken from the tombs of the period. The British Museum has a fair number of examples, quite enough to show the typical Corean glaze, a soft grey green celadon of decidedly bluish tint, a thick smooth glaze often of great delicacy and beauty of tone.

In view of this the colour of the Yüeh bowls, the blue–green of the hills, is easily visualised.But China boasts so many makes of celadon[70] that he would be a bold man who would single out any one piece and say this is Yüeh ware. Among the numerous specimens of celadon which have reached Europe from various sources it is far from improbable that some were baked in the Yüeh kilns, but at present, alas, we are impotent to identify them.

The author of the Ching–tê Chên t´ao lu[71] places the Hsing Chou factory at the modern Hsing–t´ai Hsien, a dependency of Shun–tê Fu, in Chihli. Little else is recorded about the white Hsing ware beyond a general statement in the annals of the T´ang dynasty[72] that the "white ware (tz´ŭ) cups of Nei Ch´iu were used by rich and poor throughout the empire."Nei Ch´iu, it should be explained, is identified as a township in the Hsing Chou.We may add that the ware of both Yüeh Chou and Hsing Chou was used for "musical cups" by Kuo Tao–yüan.[73] One of the criteria which the Chinese recognise in distinguishing ordinary pottery from the finer wares of a porcellanous nature is the note emitted by the ware when smartly tapped with the finger, and we may fairly infer that any bowls which were suitable for use as musical chimes would be of a sonorous, hard fired material if not actually porcelain.

The Ch´a Ching enumerates five other T´ang factories which supplied tea bowls, all of them inferior in reputation to the Yüeh Chou kilns. Ting Chou in the Hsi–an Fu,[74] in Shensi; Wu Chou in the Chin–hua Fu, in Chêkiang; Yo Chou in Hunan; Shou Chou in Kiangnan; and Hung Chou , the modern Nan–ch´ang Fu, in Kiangsi, the district in which is Ching–tê Chên, afterwards the ceramic metropolis of China.Of these wares we have only the meagre information that the Yo Chou ware was of green (ch´ing) colour; the Shou Chou ware, yellow; and that the Hung Chou ware was a brownish colour,[75] and made the tea appear black. The Hung Chou factory is also named in the Ko ku yao lun,[76] which tells us that "vessels made at Hung Chou in Kiangsi are yellowish black in colour." A sixth factory, apparently of some reputation though not mentioned in the Ch´a Ching, is named in a poem by Tu Fu, president of the Board of Works,[77] in the T´ang dynasty, who says: "The ware (tz´ŭ) baked at Ta–yi is light but strong.It gives out, when struck, a sound like the plaintive note of the Chin–ch´êng jade.The white bowls of your Excellency surpass the frost and snow.In pity hasten to send one to the pavilion of my studies."Ta–yi was in the department of Ch´iung Chou, in Szechuan.

The five brief dynasties which fill the interval between the T´ang and Sung periods are only known to ceramic history for two wares, the identity of which remains a matter of conjecture. The first is the pi sê ware of Yüeh Chou, which has already been discussed; and the second is the celebrated but intangible Ch´ai ware. Chinese writers wax poetical over the Ch´ai ware. "Men of old," says a late Ming writer,[78] "described Ch´ai ware as blue like the sky, brilliant like a mirror, thin like paper, and resonant like a musical stone." An earlier and less hyperbolical description of it given in the Ko ku yao lun[79] states that it was made at Chêng Chou, in Honan, and named ch´ai by Shin Tsung (of the Posterior Chou dynasty, who reigned for five years from 954 to 959); that its colour was sky blue; that it was "rich, refined, and unctuous," and had fine crackle–lines; that in many cases there was coarse yellow clay on the foot of the wares; and that it was rarely seen in the writer's time. Elsewhere[80] we read that, according to tradition, Shih Tsung, on being asked what kind of ware he would require for palace use, commanded that its colour for the future should be "the blue of the sky after rain as seen in the rifts of the clouds."[81] As early as the sixteenth century the Ch´ai ware had virtually ceased to exist, and a writer[82] of that time tells us "Ch´ai ware is no longer to be found. I once saw a fragment of a broken piece mounted in a girdle–buckle. Its colour was brilliant, and answered to the usual description of the ware, but the ware itself was thick." A century afterwards the ware was nothing more than a tradition, and later it developed a legendary character. Fragments of it were said to dazzle the eyes, and when worn on armour to turn aside missiles in battle.[83]

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Chinese writers have been troubled by the apparent inconsistency of the descriptions, "thin as paper" and "having coarse yellow clay on the foot."The latter may, however, merely refer to patches of coarse clay or sand which had served to support the ware in the kiln, and which had partially adhered to the base, a thing not uncommon in the earlier manufactures.The expression has, however, led some later writers[84] to identify the Ch´ai ware with a fairly well–known type of comparatively soft buff pottery, coated with a luscious turquoise or pale lavender blue glaze, which we shall have occasion to discuss later.[85] Needless to say, there is no probability of this type being the real Ch´ai. Its comparative commonness alone puts the supposition out of court, but the suggestion serves to show that some Chinese thinkers, at any rate, see the Ch´ai colour in just such glazes as the pale lavender blue of Plate 88, Fig. 2, which undoubtedly satisfies in many respects the description "blue of the sky after rain."

On the other hand, the celebrated Ju Chou ware of the Sung dynasty, which aspired to equal the Ch´ai in colour, was evidently of the grey green celadon type, with perhaps a tinge of blue like the early Corean wares.[86] We have, then, two theories on the nature of the Ch´ai glaze: (1) that it was an opalescent, turquoise glaze, such as is seen on the Chün type of wares; and (2) that it belonged to the smooth grey green celadon class, with the bluish tint strongly developed. There may be other theories[87] besides, but it matters little, as no authentic specimen is known to exist. In fact, the discussion under the circumstances would have but little interest were it not for its bearing on some of the Sung wares, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER IV

THE SUNG DYNASTY, 960–1279 A.D.

WITH the Sung dynasty firmly established in 960 A.D., the Chinese Empire entered upon a long period of prosperity rendered glorious by the cultivation of the arts of peace.It is true that the boundaries of the Empire were contracted and the Tartar tribes on the north–west had made good their independence and remained a constant menace to the frontiers of China.In 1127 the dam was broken and the desert warriors, no longer to be kept in check by diplomacy or force, burst upon Northern China and drove the peace–loving Sung from their capital, the modern K´ai–fêng Fu in Honan.The Emperor Kao Tsung and his Court fled across the Yangtze to their new capital at Hang Chou, where the dynasty continued under the name of the Southern Sung until 1279.The description given by Marco Polo of Hang Chou, which he considered, even in 1280, to be "beyond dispute the finest and the noblest city in the world," presents a wonderful picture of the refinement and luxury of the Sung civilisation.The great city had its network of canals and its twelve thousand stone bridges, its flourishing guilds of craftsmen, its merchant princes who lived "nicely and delicately as kings," its three hundred public baths of hot water, its ten principal markets, its great lake lined with houseboats and barges, and its streets thronged with carriages.The citizens themselves were peaceful and orderly, neither wearing arms nor keeping them in their homes, and their cordiality to foreigners was hardly less than the good will and friendliness which marked their relations to one another.

The conditions which produced such a community as this were ideal for the development of literature and art, and the Sung dynasty has been described as a prolonged Augustan age for poets, painters, and art workers of every persuasion.It was, moreover, an age of connoisseurs and collectors. Treatises were written on artistic subjects, encyclopædias were published, and illustrated catalogues issued by the order of the Emperor and his followers. Among the best known of these last publications are the Hsüan Ho po ku t´u lu, "Illustrated discussion of the antiquities in the palace of Hsüan Ho," and the Ku yü t´u p´u, "Illustrated description of ancient jade."It is true that modern criticism has seriously impugned the archæological value of both these classic works.It is said that ingenious conjectures and reconstructions, based on the reading of earlier literature, too often take the place of practical archæology and first–hand knowledge of the art of the Shang and Chou dynasties.Sung archæology, in fact, appears to have been in much the same theoretical condition as the Homeric criticism in Europe before the days of Schliemann.But for us these works must always have great interest, if only for the records they preserve of T´ang and Sung ideas.An excellent, if extreme, instance of the inherent weakness of Sung archæology is given by Laufer.[88] In describing certain objects of the Chou dynasty early writers had been in the habit of speaking of "grain pattern" and "rush pattern," assuming a knowledge in their readers which subsequent ages did not possess. In the Sung period the current ideas with regard to these patterns were expressed by the illustrator of the Sung edition of the Li Chi by ornamenting jade discs, in the one case with ears of wheat and in the other with a clump of rushes. Modern archæologists have identified the patterns in question on objects found in Chou burials, the grain pattern being symbolically rendered by a number of small raised discs, representing either grains of corn or heaps of grain, and the rush pattern by a kind of matting diaper, geometrically drawn. This instance serves to illustrate the salient differences between the Chou and Sung art, the two extremes; the Chou art is symbolical and geometrical, the Sung impressionist and naturalistic. The Sung poets and painters[89] communed with Nature in the wilds and threw into their verse or on to their silks vivid impressions and ideal conceptions of the natural phenomena. The Chinese art of after years owes many of its noblest inspirations to Sung masters, but nowhere are these ideas developed with the same freshness and power as in the Sung originals.

The Sung dynasty was an age of achievement for the potter. The ceramic art now took rank beside that of the bronze worker and jade carver, and it received a great impetus from regular Imperial patronage. The Ting Chou and Ju Chou factories in the north worked under Imperial mandate. In the south the pottery centre in the Ch´ang–nan district received a new name from the nien hao of the Emperor Ching Tê (1004–1007), and developed into the world–famed Ching–tê Chên. In the succeeding century the Imperial factories at Hang Chou were celebrated for the Kuan yao or royal ware; and numerous kilns were opened in the eighteen provinces, successfully following the lead of the Imperial potteries.

Subsequent ages have never ceased to venerate the Sung as the classic period of Chinese ceramic art, and in the eighteenth century the Emperor Yung Cheng sent down selected Sung specimens from the palace collection to be imitated by the Imperial potters at Ching–tê Chên.The same sentiment pervades Chinese ceramic literature.It harks back perpetually to the Sung wares as the ideal, collectors rave about them, and eulogy of the Ju, Kuan, Ko, Ting, and Lung–ch´üan wares has been almost an obsession with later Chinese writers.

Until recent years the European student has been almost entirely dependent for his knowledge of the subject on these literary appreciations or on relatively modern reproductions of the wares.Latterly, however, the interest aroused among Western collectors in the earlier wares and their consequently enhanced value have lured many authentic specimens from China, and our information on the Sung potteries has considerably expanded.But the difficulties of classification are still only in part surmounted.Many important problems remain unsolved, and for the understanding of several celebrated groups we are still at the mercy of Chinese textbooks and encyclopædias.Obscurity of phrase, ambiguity of colour words, quotations from early authorities passed on from writer to writer with diminishing accuracy, are among the many stumbling–blocks which the student of these books must surmount at every turn.Many of the treatises occur in small encyclopædias and miscellanies on works of art, which are each merely a corpus of quotations from similar works of the past.Moreover, an accurate first–hand knowledge of the wares themselves does not seem to have been held essential for the Chinese compiler.It is true that the same might be said of many of our own art–manuals, and with less excuse, for the Chinese can at any rate plead the veneration for the writers of the past in an ancestor–worshipping people, whereas our own shortcomings in this matter are due mainly to commercial reasons. But if the Chinese manuals are often misleading and obscure, they are at least brief—too brief, in many cases, and assuming a power to read between the lines which no European student can be expected to possess. The result is that where we have no actual specimens to help us, there is unlimited scope for conflicting theories on the meaning of the original text. However, as our collections grow and guiding specimens arrive, more of the Chinese descriptions are explained, and working back from the known to the unknown we are able to penetrate farther into the obscurities of the subject.

To take a single instance.The well–known celadon ware, with strongly built greyish white body, and beautiful smooth, translucent sea–green glaze, has been identified beyond all doubt with the Lung–ch´üan ware of Chinese books.When we read of the green porcelain (ch´ing tz´ŭ) bowls with fishes in relief inside or on the bottom, our thoughts at once turn with confidence to such specimens as Fig. 3, Plate 21, and we realise that for once we are certain of the meaning of the elusive colour word ch´ingIn the same way other phrases here and there can be run to earth; and when we meet the same descriptive words in other contexts, the key to their meaning is already in our hands.In this way no little profit can even now be got from the study of Chinese works, and it tends to increase steadily, though, of course, one living example is more instructive than a host of descriptions.

The Sung wares are true children of the potter's craft, made as they are by the simplest processes, and in the main decorated only by genuine potter methods.The adventitious aid of the painter's brush was, it is true, invoked in a few cases, but even then the pigments used were almost entirely of an earthy nature, and it is very doubtful if painting in enamels had yet been thought of.Two years ago enamel–painting on Sung porcelain would have been denied in the most uncompromising terms. But the claims of certain specimens of the Tz´ŭ Chou type, with brick–red and leaf–green enamel on the glaze, to belong to the Sung period have been so persistently urged that they cannot be entirely ignored.At present I am unconvinced of their Sung origin; but our knowledge of T´ang wares has developed with such surprising rapidity that we must be prepared for similar surprises in connection with the Sung. Meanwhile it would be well to suspend judgment on this interesting point.

The bulk of the Sung wares, at any rate, and among these the best of them, were either wholly undecorated—that is, wholly dependent on form and glaze, or else ornamented by such methods as moulding, stamping, application of clay reliefs, carving, or etching with a fine point.All these processes were applied while the clay was still unfixed, and the glaze was afterwards added and the ware finished once and for all in a single firing.It follows, then, that the glaze must be capable of standing the fierce heat required to bake the body, and as the Sung bodies are mostly of a high–fired porcellanous nature, the glazes used on them were limited to the refractory kinds composed largely of petuntse or porcelain stone.It follows also that any impurity, any particle of iron, for instance, in the clay would make its presence felt in the glaze and influence the colour of the latter, locally at any rate.

There is a striking contrast between the characteristic coloured glazes of the Sung and the T'ang periods.The latter are, as a rule, comparatively soft lead glazes, resembling in their colour, texture, and their minute crazing the latter glazes on Ming pottery.The former are thick and hard, and the crackle where it exists is positive and well defined.

Mr. W.Burton[90] makes some interesting comments on these high–fired glazes: "There are certain technical points of great interest to be drawn from a study of the Sung productions. In the first place, they prove that the Chinese, from a very early period, had learnt to fire their pottery at a much higher temperature than the contemporary potters of the West were using.... A third point of even greater interest, which seems to have escaped the notice of every previous writer, is that the method of firing used by the Chinese naturally produced glazes in which the oxide of iron and oxide of copper were present in the lowest state of oxidisation; and this is the explanation of the seeming paradox that the green glazes, known to us as celadon, and the copper–red glazes, were amongst the earliest productions of the Chinese porcelain–makers, while in Europe they have been among the latest secrets to be acquired."

The most important feature of the Sung wares lies in their glaze, which holds la qualité maîtresse de la céramique, as an enthusiastic French writer has expressed it. Its richness, thickness, lustre, translucency, and its colour and crackle are the main criteria of the wares in the eyes of Chinese connoisseurs. Tzŭ jun (rich and unctuous), hsi ni (fine and glossy), jung (lustrous), t´ung jung (lustrous throughout or transparent) are among the phrases most constantly met in their appreciations. A word, too, is usually added on colour of the body material, which in many cases would appear to have been of a red or brown tint, iron–coloured or copper–coloured. Not that it is necessary to infer that in every instance the ware was red or brown throughout. It is a matter of observation that in many of the early wares the exposed places (usually confined to the edge of the foot rim or the unglazed base) have assumed a rusty red colour in the firing, while a flake broken from the glaze elsewhere reveals a white or greyish white porcelain body within. This will often explain the seeming inconsistency of the Chinese descriptions in which the word porcelain is applied to an apparently dark–coloured material. At the same time, it is well to remember that the Chinese words which we translate as porcelain were far more comprehensive than our own term.

Our speculations on the nature of the Ch´ai ware in a previous chapter brought us face to face with two main types of glaze, the thick opalescent glaze of pale lavender or turquoise tint, and the smooth translucent celadon glaze in which green is the dominant colour.These types are prominent on the Sung wares, and almost all the varieties of coloured Sung glazes—with such obvious exceptions as black and chocolate brown—have more or less affinity to these two.So that if we place the old turquoise[91] glaze at one end of the series and the green celadon at the other, the rest will find an intermediate place, with leanings, of course, towards one or other of the extremes. One of the puzzling features in the study of the Sung wares is the interrelation of the various makes, such as the Ju, Kuan, Ko, Lung–ch´üan, Tung ch´ing and Chün, which all appear to have had points of mutual resemblance, although the descriptions of individual specimens differ over a wide range. If, however, it can be assumed that the same fundamental principles of manufacture were observed in all these factories, and that the divergences in the wares arose from local conditions, such as variety of clays, different conditions of firing and slight variations in the composition of the glaze, a formula is established which will cover most of our difficulties. I am assured by no less an authority on glazes than Mr. W. Burton[92] that this assumption is perfectly justifiable, and that one and the same glaze might emerge from the kiln as a celadon green, a grey green, dove grey, lavender grey, or lavender turquoise under slightly varying conditions of firing, and according to the presence or absence of an infinitesimal proportion of iron or copper oxide in the body or glaze. Even with their empirical methods the old Chinese potters must have soon discovered the conditions which favoured certain results, but in the meantime quite a number of apparently different wares would have emerged from the same factory, and yet, in spite of local peculiarities, a general relationship might be observed in productions of different districts. So that when one Chinese writer compares the Ju ware to the Ch´ai, another the Kuan to the Ju, another the Ko to the Kuan, and another the Lung–ch´üan to the Ko, it is not necessary to assume that these porcelains were all grass–green celadons because we happen to know that that colour was the prevailing tint of the Lung–ch´üan ware. The Ch´ai and the Lung–ch´üan may have been as far apart as lavender and celadon green, and the chain of relationship linked up by the Chinese writers still hold firm.

No one but an experienced potter can speak with confidence of the methods by which the varying colour effects in the Sung glazes were obtained, but it is quite certain that the Sung potters were not ignorant of the value of such colouring agents as the oxides of iron, copper, cobalt, and perhaps even of antimony.Green, blue, yellow, and brown glazes, which owed their tint to these minerals, had appeared some centuries before on the T´ang wares.But to what extent the men of Sung made deliberate use of these oxides is another question.It is certain, for instance, that the green celadon owed its colour to the presence of iron oxide, but whether that was a natural element in the clay of certain districts, or whether it was introduced in the glaze by the admixture of ferruginous clay, is not always clear.Again, those bursts of contrasting colour, usually red, which enrich the opalescent grey and lavender glazes, are most readily explained by the local presence of copper or iron oxide in an appreciable quantity. No doubt these effects were at first accidental, but it is certain that observation and experiment eventually taught the potters to produce them systematically. Otherwise, how explain the appearance of these colours in symmetrical splashes? The flambé glazes of the eighteenth century are known to have been produced by means of copper oxide, and it is not unreasonable to infer its presence in similar effects at an early date. But it is equally certain that many of the changing tints in the thick, uneven, bubbly glazes of the Sung and Yüan wares are due to opalescence alone. This has been proved to demonstration by Mr. Burton, who has produced from his kilns a porcelain glaze with passages of pale lavender, and even flushes of warm red, by using nothing but a thick, opalescent glaze entirely innocent of any colouring oxide.

Finally, a word of explanation is needed with regard to the frequent references to thinly potted specimens among the principal Sung wares.Almost all of the existing examples are of a thick and rather heavy type.Not that we would have them thinner, for much of their charm is due to the massive opulence of the thick opalescent glaze with its prismatic depths and changing hues.But the Chinese writers constantly refer to a thinner ware as well as the thick.Where are these thin and elegant pieces?The suggestion that, being more fragile, they have by now all perished has been coldly received as an obvious and easy answer to a difficult question.But it is reasonable enough, after all, when one remembers that upwards of a thousand years have passed since their manufacture.The alternative that they existed only in the poetical imagination of later Chinese writers is far less probable, though doubtless account must be taken of the exaggerations indulged in by men who were describing the ideal wares of a classic period."Thin as paper," for instance, must have been a poetic licence as applied to the Ch´ai ware.I shall not cite the illustrations in the Album of Hsiang Yüan–p´ien[93] as proof of the fineness and trim regularity of the best Sung specimens. Whatever the value of this manuscript may originally have been, no reliance can be placed on the illustrations as reproduced in Porcelain of Different Dynasties[94] The original was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1888, and what we have now is, at best, the reproduction of a copy, and probably that of a copy of a copy. It is quite possible that the thinner Sung wares are still represented in Chinese collections, rare though they must of necessity be. But I believe that even our own collections are capable of supplying proof that, making reasonable allowance for verbal exaggeration, the Sung potters did make wares which could fairly be described as thin. Many of the white Ting wares are thin enough to be translucent; no one questions the correctness of the description as applied to them. It only wants one specimen to prove the case for the celadon glazes, and that may be seen in the beautiful bowl in Mr. Alexander's loan collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Plate 16). As for the Ju and Kuan ware, it is useless to consider their case until we are quite satisfied that we have established their identity; and in the nature of things the opalescent glazes and those described as "thick as massed lard" by the Chinese can only have accompanied a relatively thin body. On the other hand, many of the Corean celadons are of unimpeachable thinness, and as they were contemporary with the Sung porcelains and were almost certainly copied from them, there seems no real ground to withhold belief entirely from the Chinese statements with regard to the thinness of certain coloured Sung wares.

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CHAPTER V

JU, KUAN, AND KO WARES

Ju yao

THOUGH no authenticated example of Ju ware is known in Europe, it is impossible to ignore a factory whose productions were unanimously acclaimed by Chinese writers as the cream of the Sung wares. Its place of origin, Ju Chou, in the province of Honan, lies in the very district which was celebrated in a previous reign for the Ch´ai pottery, and it is probable that the Ju factories continued the traditions of this mysterious ware. Nothing, however, is known of them until they received the Imperial command to supply a ch´ing (blue or green) porcelain to take the place of the white Ting Chou porcelain which had fallen into temporary disfavour on account of certain blemishes. This event, which took place towards the end of the Northern Sung period (960–1127 A.D.), implies that whatever had been their past history, the Ju Chou factories were at this period pre–eminent for the beauty of their ch´ing porcelain. It would appear from the Ch´ing po tsa chih,[95] which was written in 1193, that the Ju Chou potters were set to work in the "forbidden precincts of the Palace," and that selected pieces only were offered for Imperial use, the rejected specimens being offered for sale. Even at the end of the twelfth century we are assured that it was very difficult to obtain examples of the ware.

From the various accounts on which we have to depend for our conception of the ware, it is clear that the body was of a dark colour.[96] The glaze was thick and of a colour variously described as "approaching the blue of the sky after rain" (i.e. like the Ch´ai ware), pale blue or green,[97] and "egg white"[98] which seems to imply a white ware with a faint greenish tinge. The author of the Ch'ing pi tsang,[99] a work of considerable repute published in 1595, gives a first–hand description of the ware: "Ju yao I have seen. Its colour is 'egg white' and its glaze is lustrous and thick like massed lard. In the glaze appear faint 'palm eye' markings like crabs' claws.[100] Specimens with sesamum designs (lit. flowers), finely and minutely engraved on the bottom, are genuine. As compared with Kuan yao in material and make, it is more rich and unctuous (tzŭ jun)." Two mysterious peculiarities have been attributed to the Ju ware, viz. that powdered cornaline was mixed with the glaze, and that a row of nail heads was sometimes found under the base. The first has been taken as merely an imaginative explanation of the lustre of the glaze, but it is certain that some kind of pulverised quartz–like stone was used in the composition of later glazes, such as the "ruby red" (see vol. ii. , p. 123). The second, which has been seriously interpreted to mean that actual metal nails were found protruding from the glaze (a physical impossibility, as the metal would inevitably have melted in the kiln), is probably due to a misunderstanding of a difficult Chinese phrase, chêng ting,[101] which may mean "engraved with a point" or "cut nails." The former seems to satisfy the requirements of the case, though it would be possible to render the sentence, "having sesamum flowers on the bottom and fine small nails," referring to the little projections often found on the bottom of dishes which have been supported in the kiln on pointed rests or "spurs."

In the list of porcelains made at the Imperial potteries about the year 1730[102] we read of imitations of Ju ware from specimens sent down from the Imperial collections. These imitations had in one case an uncrackled glaze on a copper–coloured body, and in the other a glaze with crackle like fish roe; and we may fairly infer that the originals had the same peculiarities. A reputed specimen[103] of modern Ju glaze[104] has a pale greyish green tint, with just a suspicion of blue, and would answer fairly well to the description tan ch´ing or fên ch´ing

But probably our safest clue to the appearance of Ju ware is to be found in the important passage already mentioned,[105] in which a Sung writer describes the Corean wares as in general appearance like the old pi–sê ware of Yüeh Chou and the new Ju Chou ware. The typical Corean wares of this time are not uncommon, and their glaze—a soft grey green or greenish grey, with a more or less obvious tinge of blue—would satisfy the Chinese phrases, tan ch´ing and fên ch´ing, and in the bluer specimens might, by a stretch of poetic phrase, even be likened to the sky after rain.The "egg white," however, must have been a somewhat paler tint if the expression can be taken in any literal sense.

From the foregoing considerations we may conclude that the Ju porcelain was a beautiful ware of celadon type, varying in tint from a very pale green to a bluish green.

Though it is nowhere definitely stated how long the Ju Chou factories retained their supremacy, it is tolerably clear from Hsü Ching's reference in 1125, or very soon after, to the "modern porcelain of Ju Chou," that they came into prominence towards the end of the Northern Sung period, perhaps in the last half of the eleventh century; and as we have no further information about them, we may perhaps infer that they sank into obscurity when the Sung emperors were driven from the North of China by the invading Tartars in 1127.In any case, the Ju ware seems to have become as extinct as the Ch´ai by the end of the Ming dynasty.Hsiang Yüan–p´ien, late in the sixteenth century, states that "Ju yao vessels are disappearing.The very few which exist are almost all dishes, cups, and the like, and many of these are damaged and imperfect."[106] A few years later another writer[107] declares that the Ch´ai and Ju porcelains had ceased to exist.

It is not to be supposed that Ju Chou had the monopoly of the particular kind of ch´ing ware in which its factories excelled. A number of other and not distant potteries were engaged in a similar manufacture, though with less conspicuous success. We read,[108] for instance, that "it was made in the districts of T´ang, Têng, and Yao on the north of the (Yellow) River, though the productions of Ju Chou were the best."

It has been already remarked that we possess no authenticated example of Ju porcelain.Doubtless there are many pieces which are tentatively assigned to Ju Chou by hopeful owners.But it must be confessed that the few which have hitherto been published as such are singularly unfortunate choices.Dr. B.Laufer, for instance, in his excellent work on jade,[109] incidentally figures two vases for divining rods of a well–known form, of which he hazards the remark "that both have presumably been made in the kilns of Ju–chou."

Dr. Laufer does not claim to have made a particular study of Chinese ceramics apart from the Han pottery, but if these pieces are Ju yao, then Ju yao, so far from having been extinct for some centuries, is a comparatively common ware.Another instance is the "funeral vase," now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, published[110] by its former owner, Dr. Bushell, as a specimen of Ju ware, mainly, I suppose, on the strength of the description, "Kuan Yin vase of Ju Yao," engraved on the stand by the Chinese collector[111] through whose hands it had previously passed. This form of certificate is always open to doubt, and had it really been a specimen of undoubted Ju yao, it is most improbable that the Chinese would have allowed it at that time to pass into foreign hands.

But a glance at the piece itself is sufficient to dispel all illusions on that point.So far from excelling other Sung wares, this piece is decidedly inferior in every detail to the most ordinary Sung specimens.It has a coarse, sandy, greyish buff body and impure greyish green tinge, such as appears on some of the early funeral wares which make no pretence to finished workmanship.The ornament consists of applied reliefs perfunctorily moulded, and though its archæological interest is considerable, and, like almost all Chinese wares, it possesses a certain charm, any attempt to place it on a high artistic plane can only end in a reductio ad absurdum

Many other examples of this ware have since arrived in Europe, and they all belong to the same type.Some, however, appear to be later than the others, having reliefs of white porcelain instead of the usual pottery.They are always described as "funeral vases" by the Chinese, and it is exceedingly probable that the description is correct.The subjects of the reliefs are always of a hieratic kind, including such figures as the dragon of the East, the tiger of the West, the tortoise of the North, and the red bird of the South, the sun disc, and a ring of indistinguishable figures, perhaps Buddhist deities.There is no reason why such a type of sepulchral vase may not have been in use for many centuries, and if the porcelain reliefs in one specimen suggest a date no earlier than the Ming dynasty, the glaze in another has strong analogies to some of the rougher T´ang wares.The majority of these vases are of coarse, rough make; others are superior in finish and of comparatively attractive form.A good example, belonging to Mr. R.H.Benson, is shown on Plate 14.It is of dense grey stoneware, with opaque greenish grey glaze, with a balustrade supported by four figures on the shoulder, and a dragon and a figure on a tiger (perhaps representing the mythical Fêng Kan), besides some small figures with indistinct attributes on the neck.The height is 20 inches.

It is, of course, possible that some of these represent the coarser makes of the T´ang, Têng, and Yao districts (see p.55), and that the attribution of the Bushell vase by Liu Yen–t´ing may refer to a lower quality of Ju yao which included these wares, or may be even the wares made at Ju Chou before or after its period of Imperial patronage.[112]

My own conception of the Ju yao is most nearly realised by the lovely but sadly damaged bowl in the Alexander Collection lately in the Loan Court at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Its peculiar form is difficult to reproduce by photographic means, but Fig. 1 of Plate 16 gives a fair idea of it. The colour is precisely that of the most beautiful bluish green Corean bowls, but the usual Corean finish and the sand marks on the base are absent, and the glaze is broken by a large, irregular crackle. Surely this cannot be far removed from the "secret colour" of the Yüeh ware and the fên ch´ing of the Ju?

PLATE 16.

Sung Wares

Fig. 1. —Bowl with six–lobed sides; thin porcellanous ware, burnt brown at the foot–rim, with bluish green celadon glaze irregularly crackled. Alexander Collection. Diameter 9 ¹/₂ inches.

Fig. 2. —Tripod Incense Burner. White porcelain, burnt pale red under the feet. P Lung–ch´üan celadon ware. This kind of celadon is known as kinuta.seiji in Japan, where it is highly prized. Eumorfopoulos Collection. Height 4 ¹/₈ inches.

Another specimen of reputed Ju ware is an exquisite peach–shaped brush–washer or cup in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 15, Fig.1).It has a dark–coloured body and a beautiful smooth glaze of pale greenish grey tint, and whatever its origin, it is certainly a refined and beautiful example of the potter's art.

Kuan yao

This ware is only second in importance to the Ju yao, and its exact nature is scarcely less speculative.The name, which means "official" or "Imperial" ware, seems to have been first applied to the porcelains made for Imperial use at the Northern Sung capital, the modern K´ai–fêng Fu, in Honan.The factory was established at the command of the Emperor Hui Tsung in the Chêng Ho period (1111–1117), according to the earliest[113] or in the preceding Ta Kuan period (1107–1110), according to a later[114] account. Its career, however, was interrupted by the flight of the Sung Court south of the Yangtze in 1127, though it is probable that a number of the potters followed the Court. At any rate, the traditions of the original factory were continued at the new capital, Hang Chou, by an official named Shao Ch´êng–shang, who set up kilns in the Imperial precincts, in the department called Hsiu net ssŭAnother writer locates this factory under the Phœnix Hill.Shortly afterwards a new pottery was started "below the suburban altar" at Hang Chou, which copied the forms of the older Kuan ware, but without equalling its quality.We have then no fewer than three different makes all included in the name of Kuan yao, all following one tradition but differing, as we shall see, in material and quality.

The first is the K´ai–fêng Fu variety.The earlier writers in the Cho kêng lu and Ko ku yao lun make no attempt to differentiate[115] this porcelain from the later Kuan yao, but we find in a sixteenth–century collection of miscellanies, the Liu ch´ing jih cha, the following scrap of information: that "specimens (of the K´ai–fêng ware) with streaky colour, white on the upper part and thin as paper, were inferior to Ju ware"; and the more modern T´ao lu informs us that the K´ai–fêng Kuan ware was made of fine unctuous material with thin body, the colour of the glaze being ch´ing (blue or green) with a tinge of pale red (fên hung) and of varying depth of tone. It is further stated that in the Ta Kuan period moon white or clair de lune (yüeh pai), pale green or blue (fên ch´ing) and deep green (ta lü) glazes were esteemed, whereas in the Chêng Ho period only the ch´ing colour in varying depth of tone was used. Moreover, the glaze had "crab's claw crackle," and the vessels had a "red–brown mouth and iron foot." The latter phrase (explained below) is not consistent with the account in the Liu ch´ing jih cha, "white on the upper part," which certainly implies a light–coloured clay, but I confess that I have little confidence in the subtle distinctions of the T´ao lu in this passage. They are mere assertions, without any reasons given, and it is not difficult to find a source from which they may in part, at least, have been derived, and which in itself guarantees no such differentiation.[116] It is likely enough that the K´ai–fêng ware differed in body from the red ware of Hang Chou, but it is not likely to have differed very greatly in other respects, seeing that the southern variety continued the traditions of the northern, and that the earliest authorities do not trouble to distinguish the two wares at all.

Another critic,[117] discussing Kuan ware as a whole, makes its characteristics practically the same as those of the Ko ware, to which we shall come next, and states that "in regard to colour, in both cases the pale ch´ing (fên ch´ing) specimens are the best, the 'pale white' (tan pai[118]) are second, while those with ash–coloured (hui sê) glaze are very inferior."From the same writer we gather that artificial staining of the crackle was employed on both Kuan and Ko wares, for he speaks of "ice–crackle with lines red as eel's blood" and "plum–blossom[119] crackle with ink–coloured lines," besides an inferior type of crackle with fine lines which did not suggest any particular pattern.

The Hang Chou Kuan ware, variously described as Kuan yao, Hsiu nei ssŭ yao, Nei yao, and Shao yao from the locality of the factory and the name of its manager, is described in both the Cho kêng lu and the Ko ku yao lun. In the former it was said to be a ch´ing ware, "finely levigated clay[120] is the rule, and it is of very exquisite make; the coloured glaze is translucent[121]; it is the delight of the age."[122] The latter,[123] which makes no mention of an earlier Kuan ware, gives the following description of the Nei yao: "The material is fine and unctuous, the colour ch´ing with a flush of pale red (tai fên hung) and of varying intensity. Specimens with crab's–claw crackle, brown mouth, and iron foot, and of good colour rank with Ju yao. There are, besides, specimens with a black body which are called wu ni yaoAll the imitations which are made at Lung–ch´üan are without crackle."

Further information is given in the Po wu yao lan, viz.that the clay used at the factory below the Phœnix Hill at Hang Chou for making Kuan yao was of reddish brown (tzŭ) colour, and that this explains the phenomenon of the "brown mouth and iron foot"[124]; for "the brown mouth is due to the fact that the vessel's mouth points upwards and the glaze flows downwards and is thinner at the mouth than on the rest of the body, so that the brown colour (of the clay) is disclosed at the mouth." The iron foot is, of course, the raw edge of the clay which appears at the foot rim. As this peculiarity is not noted in the Cho kêng lu, we are at liberty to infer that it was not a constant feature of the Kuan wares, and that some of them, as already hinted in the quotation from the Liu ch´ing jih cha, had a whitish body.

Of the third Kuan yao made "below the suburban altar" at a slightly later date, we know nothing except that it followed the style of the older wares, but with inferior results.

Though we do not pretend to attach much weight to the illustrations in Hsiang's Album, the descriptions in the accompanying text cannot be ignored.They include ten specimens of Kuan yao,[125] five of which are explained as fên ch´ing (pale blue or green). Of the rest one is "pale ch´ing clear and lustrous like a sapphire blue jewel,"[126] evidently with a decidedly blue tinge; another is "kingfisher, blue as the clear blue sky,"[127] recalling the Ch´ai "blue of the sky after rain "; another is "sky blue" (t´ien ch´ing); another "onion green" (ch´ing ts´ung), the colour of onion sprouts; and another is "egg green" (luan ch´ing), which recalls and perhaps explains the luan pai (egg white) of the Ju yao.

PLATE 17

Two examples of Sung wares of the Chün or Kuan factories.

Fig. 1. —Bowl with lavender glaze, lightly crackled. O.Raphael Collection. Height 4 ¹/₂ inches.

Fig. 2. —Vase with smooth lavender grey glaze suffused with purple. Eumorfopoulos Collection. Height 3 ³/₄ inches.

Among the various Sung and Yüan wares with more or less opalescent glazes which have reached Europe in recent years, it is possible to differentiate a considerable group whose characteristics seem to point to the Kuan yao.Their body is usually of fine grain, whitish colour and porcellanous texture, but assuming a rusty brownish tint in the exposed parts.It is, in fact, very much finer than the Yüan wares, usually so called, and all but the choicest wares of Chün type (see ch.ix.)The glaze, too, though generally opalescent, shows marked differences from that of the Chün and Yüan pieces.It is smooth and even instead of being lumpy and irregular, and it ends close up to the foot rim in a comparatively regular line instead of ending short of the base in a thick roll or in heavy drops. And the base instead of being quite bare or covered with a brown glaze, has a patch of the surface glaze underneath. The colours of this glaze show wide variations from a deep brownish green, which suggest the ta lü, to pale dove grey (fên ch´ing) and pale lavender blue tints, which approximate to the Chinese t´ien ch´ing or sky blue, though perhaps not so closely as does the so–called "old turquoise." Some of these glazes, especially the pale lavender and dove greys, are broken by passages of red or crimson, which in turn shade off into green and brown tints. Although the expression tai fên hung in the Ko ku yao lun[128] has already been rendered in its most natural sense, "with a tinge of red," we should perhaps mention a possible alternative which might make it refer to these very passages of red colour; and the fact that they sometimes assume fantastic shapes will explain why the Chinese saw in them "butterflies, birds, fish, unicorns, and leopards."[129] On the other hand, it is clear that these passages of red are not always accidental, for they sometimes take symmetrical forms, and it is quite possible that even the bird and fish forms may have been roughly designed in the colouring medium.

Plate 17 will serve to illustrate this group of possible Kuan wares. Another example is a dish in the British Museum which has a whitish porcellanous body and a slightly crackled pale lavender grey glaze of singular beauty. Other specimens in the same collection include a small tea bowl with misty grey glaze of the fên ch´ing type, smooth and uncrackled, and a body which appears deep reddish brown at the foot; and a small bottle–shaped vase, with lobed body of melon shape, which, though of doubtful antiquity, answers closely to the Chinese descriptions. It has a dark–coloured but well levigated body, deep brown at the foot, and showing a brown tinge where the glaze has run thin at the lip, and the colour is a pale bluish grey with rosy tinges where the body colour is able to penetrate the semi–translucent glaze. Another doubtful specimen, with very similar characteristics, was figured by me in the Burlington Magazine some years ago.[130]

Since the genuine Sung specimens were sent to the Imperial factories to be closely copied (about 1730), it might be supposed that the relatively modern imitations would supply some clue to the original types.There are one or two examples of eighteenth–century copies of Kuan ware in the British Museum on which the glaze is definitely lavender blue in tint, with a crackle which in one case is wide and emphasised by blackened lines, and in the other of a finer mesh.[131] The natural tendency, however, of modern imitative wares is to exaggerate some characteristic which this or that potter might imagine to be specially important, and as it is impossible to say in many cases exactly when the piece in question was made, we cannot be sure how far the potters in each case may have strayed from the original type.[132] No doubt in time these imitations would become a mere convention. It should be said in passing that the modern copies have a white porcelain body, and to obtain the appearance of "brown mouth and iron foot" the potters had recourse to the expedient of colouring the parts concerned with brown ferruginous clay.

The Cho kêng lu[133] refers to three minor wares which were regarded as inferior to Kuan ware, and later writers have assumed that they belonged to the same category. These are the Hsü wares, Yü–hang wares, and wu–ni wares. The first[134] is so little known that its identity has been lost in variant readings, such as Hsün in later writers, which is very near in appearance to tung , a common form used for the Tung ware (see p. 82); and we can safely leave it until some clearer information is forthcoming. The second, according to the T´ao lu,[135] was a Sung ware made at Yü–hang Hsien, in the prefecture of Hang Chou. "Its colour was like Kuan porcelain without its crackle, its lustre (jung), and its unctuous richness (jun)." The wu–ni ware is dark–bodied earthenware, which is discussed on p. 133.

Ko yao

Ko yao (the elder brother's ware), or Ko ko yao, as it is sometimes called with the first character repeated, is unanimously ranked by Chinese writers with the Ju and Kuan wares. According to the traditional accounts, it was first made by the elder of the two brothers Chang , who were potters of Lung–ch´üan Hsien in the Ch´u–chou Fu, province of Chekiang, each having a separate factory in the Liu–t´ien district.Most of the Chinese authorities are content to give the date of these brothers as some time in the Sung dynasty, but one account[136] narrows the period down to the Southern Sung (1127–1279 A.D.).Professor Hirth takes the rationalistic view that the story of the brothers is a myth embodying the fact that there were two distinct types of ware made in the Lung–ch´üan district.Be this as it may, the Ko yao is of considerable interest to us as forming a link between the obscure Ju and Kuan wares and the well–known Lung–ch´üan celadon, approaching the latter in its grass green and sea green varieties and the former in its most highly prized specimens of bluish green or grey tones.

Of its close resemblance to the Kuan ware there can be no doubt, for two highly reputable Chinese writers[137] describe the two wares simultaneously and under one heading, enumerating their various colours in order of merit as fên ch´ing, tan pai, and hui sê (see p. 60), besides mentioning the several kinds of crackle which appeared in the glaze. The only distinctions which the author of the Ch´ing pi ts´ang draws between the two wares are that (1) the Kuan yao crackle is of the "crab's claw"[138] type, while that of the Ko is like fish–roe,[139] and (2) the Ko glaze is somewhat less beautiful than the Kuan.With regard to the crackle, other writers assert that short cracks are characteristic of the Ko yao, and one author uses the picturesque phrase, "crackle of a hundred dangers."[140]

Accidental splashes of contrasting colour, which sometimes assumed fantastic forms, were common to the Ko and Kuan wares, as mentioned on p. 65, and the author of the Po wu yao lan explains these as "originating in the colour of the glaze and forming on its outer surface," and as "due to the fire's magic transmutation."

Another account of the ware given in the Ko ku yao lun depicts it as of deep or pale ch´ing colour, with brown mouth and iron foot, and adds that when the colour was good it was classed with Tung[141] ware. The same passage further informs us that a great quantity of the ware "recently made at the end of the Yüan dynasty" was coarse and dry in body and inferior in colour, a statement to which we shall return presently.

PLATE 19.

Vase of close–grained, dark reddish brown stoneware with thick, smooth glaze, boldly crackled.Ko ware of the Sung dynasty.

Height 10 ⁵/₈ inches.  Eumorfopoulos Collection.

Other descriptive references to Ko yao include a verse on a Ko ink palette belonging to Ku Liu,[142] which was "green (lü) as the waves in spring"; the eighteenth–century list of Imperial wares[143] which mention "Ko glazes on an iron body," of two kinds, viz. millet–coloured and pale green[144] (or blue), both stated to have been copied from ancient specimens sent down from the palace; and a single specimen in Hsiang's Album, which is given as fên ch´ing

In these various descriptions it is possible to recognise a celadon green ware, green as the waves of spring, while the familiar stone grey and buff crackled wares, which range from greyish white to pale grey green and greenish yellow, seem to be indicated in the expressions mi sê, fên ch´ing, tan pai, and hui sê. The modern versions of the latter class, which are fairly common, are usually known even to–day as Ko yao, the expression in potter's language being practically synonymous with "crackled wares."[145] Other ancient factories where similar wares were made are Hsiang–hu and Chi Chou.[146]

As for the finer Ko wares, which appear to have been indistinguishable from the Kuan, we may look for them in the group described on p.65, and in such beautiful pieces as that illustrated on Plate 19, a vase of fine oval form with delicate grey glaze of faint bluish tone boldly crackled.The solid quality of the glaze of this last specimen and the texture of the surface, which is smooth but lustrous, suggest some natural substance such as the shell of an egg or a smooth polished stone rather than an artificial material.The colour perhaps more truly answers the description "egg white" (luan pai) than any other Sung glaze which I have seen.Plate 20 illustrates another choice example but with a yellower tone of glaze; and a large square vase in the Freer Collection[147] with thick, misty grey glaze showing a faint tinge of red, which recall the sê ch´ing tai fên hung of the Kuan ware, was shown in the New York exhibition of 1914. All these three specimens have a dark reddish brown body of fine close grain, and their glaze is very thick and unctuous with a tendency to contract into thick wax–like drops under the base.

From certain passages in the Chinese works it appears that a revival of the Ko yao took place in the Yüan dynasty, if indeed the manufacture had not been continuous. The Ko ku yao lun, for instance, under the heading of Ko yao, states that the "ware recently made at the end of the Yüan dynasty was coarse and dry in body and inferior in colour." In the Po wu yao lan[148] we read that "certain Ko wares made in private factories took their clay from the Phœnix Hill" (at Hang Chou, where the Kuan potteries were located), and the T´ao lu[149] definitely states that clay was brought from Hang Chou for this later Ko ware. Add to these the remark in the Ko ku yao lun on the subject of Kuan ware[150]—"all the imitations which are made at Lung–ch´üan are without crackle"—and it is clear that the Lung–ch´üan potters in the fourteenth century were busy copying both the Kuan and Ko wares, and that to obtain a closer resemblance to the former they actually sent to Hang Chou for the red clay which would produce the "brown mouth and iron foot."The alleged absence of crackle would indicate a departure from the original Ko methods, but we are at liberty to doubt the universal application of such sweeping statements, and I ventured to suggest[151] that a remarkable bowl in the British Museum was a Yüan example of Ko ware, because, in spite of its Ko crackle, it corresponds so closely to the other points in the descriptions of this make. In any case, there is little doubt that it belongs to an early period of manufacture.

PLATE 20.

Deep Bowl of reddish brown stoneware with thick, boldly crackled glaze.Ko ware of the Sung dynasty.

Height (without stand) 4 inches.  Eumorfopoulos Collection.

The following extract from a work entitled Pi chuang so yü,[152] which would be still more interesting if we knew its date, serves to illustrate some of the difficulties the Chinese collector had to face in the past: "Ancient examples of Ko yao of the Sung period have survived, though for a long time past genuine and counterfeit have been confused together. Among men there are very many who seek for the genuine Sung, but refined and beautiful specimens are exceedingly few.... Ts´ao Chiung, a man of high birth, secured an incense burner, in height about two inches and in width proportionate. The cover was beautiful jade carved with a pattern of sea waves of Tung ch´ing[153] colour, with a handle in form of a crane, a genuine piece, and exceedingly beautiful. It came to the ears of the eunuch Mai, governor of the district, and he put Chiung in prison and subjected him to the inquisition. His son had no choice but to offer the vessel as a gift. Later the powerful hand of the superintendent of the Board of Rites seized it. In the Chêng Tê period (1522–66) it was stolen, and, coming to the district below Wu, it became the property of Chang Hsin–fu of Tien–shan, Shanghai, who sold it for 200 ounces of gold. After that it came again into the hands of a connoisseur, and the Imperial authorities in the end did not succeed in recovering it. This was a genuine antique Ko vessel."

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CHAPTER VI

LUNG–CH´ÜAN YAO

IN discussing the celebrated Lung–ch´üan celadons, we are able to build our structure on a more solid basis.For one group of them, at any rate, is so familiar that we should be tempted to abandon the difficult Chinese descriptions and construct an essay on the ware from actually existing specimens, were it not that in so doing we should miss our chief opportunity of applying a living test to the Chinese phrases.

The district of Lung–ch´üan in the prefecture of Ch´u–chou, province of Chekiang, was noted for its potteries as early[154] as the beginning of the Sung dynasty, but its greatest celebrity was attained by the market town of Liu–t´ien, where the Chang brothers are reputed to have worked.[155] The story that the elder Chang moved to Liu–t´ien while the younger brother remained at Lung–ch´üan is, I believe, based on a misreading of a Chinese passage,[156] the true meaning of which seems to be that while the elder brother made new departures which earned for his ware the distinctive name of Ko yao, the younger continued the Lung–ch´üan traditions, and consequently his ware was known as Lung–ch´üan yao. It appears that one vital difference between the two wares was crackle, which was used by the elder and not by the younger brother.

The productions of the Lung–ch´üan district are variously named in the Ko ku yao lun, "Ch´u ware" (from Ch´u–chou Fu, the name of the prefecture), "ch´ing ware," and "old ch´ing ware," and the various Chinese accounts agree in distinguishing two broad classes, the one having a thin body of fine material, and the other a thick body of coarser and heavier make.

The first of these two classes includes the Chang yao, or ware of the younger Chang, of which the Ch´ing pi ts´ang gives the following description: "There is one kind in the manufacture of which white clay is used, and the surface of the ware is covered with ts´ui[157] glaze through which the white shows in faint patches. This is what was made by the Chang family in the Sung dynasty, and is called Chang yao. Compared with the Lung–ch´üan ware in style and make, it gives the impression of greater delicacy and refinement." Another writer[158] describes it as "single–coloured and pure, like beautiful jade, and ranking with the Kuan yao; whereas the Ko yao was pale in colour."

The eleven examples figured and described in Hsiang's Album are all apparently of this class, and their colour is variously described as "green, of jade–green tint (ts´ui pi), like a wet, mossy bank or slender willow twigs," "green like the green of onion (sprouts)" (ts´ui jo ch´ing ts´ung), "green like parrot's feathers," "green like the dull green (lü) of a melon," and "soft jade–green like onion sprouts in autumn."Hsiang's similes leave no doubt as to the prevailing tint of the ware, which clearly aimed at rivalling the tint of the prized green jade.As might be expected, few if any of Chang's celadons are to be found in our collections.Relatively few in numbers, assuming them to have been the work of one lifetime, and slender in structure, it is improbable that many of them can have survived the chances of eight or nine hundred years, and even supposing that any of them have reached Europe, their identity now could only be a matter of conjecture.

The second class is best known to us in those thick, massive porcelains with greyish white body and smooth grey green glaze which have been named in Persian countries martabani and in Europe celadon. The former name is no doubt derived from the port of Martaban, on the coast of Pegu, a meeting place of Eastern and Western traders, from which the Chinese goods were shipped or transhipped for Europe and the nearer East. The latter name has a more capricious origin, deriving from the shepherd Céladon, a stage personality whose familiar grey green clothing suggested a name for the grey green porcelain. He appeared in one of the plays founded on the early seventeenth–century romance, L'Astrée, written by Honoré d'Urfé.

Large dishes and plates, bowls, vases, bulb bowls and jars of this green ware have found their way to all parts of Europe in considerable numbers, and they evidently formed a staple of far Eastern trade in the Middle Ages.The subject of their distribution will be treated presently.First, we must complete their description.

The ware, as a general rule, has a greyish white mass varying from porcelain to stoneware, and with the peculiar quality of assuming a reddish brown tint wherever the glaze is absent and the "biscuit" was exposed to the fire of the kiln. It has, in fact, the "iron foot" though not the "brown mouth," for the body is of a whitish colour under the glaze, and consequently the mouth of the vessel varies from green to greenish white, according to the thickness of the glaze. The decoration is either carved, etched with fine point, or raised in relief by pressing in an intaglio mould or by the application of small ornaments separately formed in moulds. All these processes are applied to the body before the glaze is added, and the glaze, though covering them over, is transparent enough to allow the details to appear fairly distinctly. In the case of the applied reliefs, however, the glaze is often locally omitted, and the ornaments stand out in biscuit, which has assumed the usual reddish brown tint. This is well illustrated on Plate 21, in which two brown fishes are represented swimming round a sea green dish. A dish in the British Museum shows three fishes swimming beneath the green surface of the glaze. This fish design was frequent enough to have earned special notice in Chinese books, which are excessively niggard in their enumeration of designs. The Ko ku yao lun,[159] for instance, says "there is one kind of dish on the bottom of which is a pair of fishes, and on the outside are copper rings attached to lift it."

Elaborate designs of flowers, flying phœnixes in peony scrolls, dragons in clouds or waves, formed in relief by pressure in moulds, were certainly used on Sung celadons just as they were in the white Ting wares, but they seem to have been still more common on the Ming wares.But the best and most characteristic Sung decoration was a beautiful freehand carving executed with admirable spirit and taste, in those bold, half naturalistic, half idealised sketches which distinguish the art of the time. Complex ornament, such as landscape and figure subjects, is occasionally found on old celadons; and there is one kind of bowl of rounded form with rather high narrow foot which is decorated inside with groups of figures carved or impressed in intaglio, the subjects being the eight Taoist Immortals, or historical personages such as Confucius, the chess–playing General, etc., usually labelled with their names in Chinese characters. The glaze on these bowls varies widely in colour and texture, being sometimes smooth celadon green, sometimes yellowish or brownish green or again a pale apple green with crackled surface; and it is possible that they come from some district other than Lung–ch´üan.[160]

The Lung–ch´üan celadon glaze is singularly beautiful with its soft, smooth translucent texture and restful tints, which vary from olive green through grass green and sea green to pale greenish grey, occasionally showing a decidedly bluish tone. The ware has enjoyed immense popularity in almost every part of the world for untold years, and nowhere more than in Japan, where choice specimens have always been highly valued, and it is not a little surprising to find that in this country alone its merits are underestimated. The Chinese themselves have been always loud in their praises of the finer varieties, though they have not always spoken in complimentary terms of the thick and massive types which were so suitable for the export trade. Of these the Ch´ing pi ts´ang observes that they readily withstand usage and handling, and do not easily break; but the workmanship is somewhat clumsy, and the designs are lacking in antique elegance. With the finer examples within reach, these strictures were perhaps only natural; but there has never been any doubt of the Chinese appreciation of the celadon glaze, for while they have never ceased to reproduce it in other factories, it is always the old Lung–ch´üan ware which serves as their standard and model.

The modern celadon glaze is made by mixing ferruginous clay with the ordinary feldspathic glaze and adding a pinch of cobalt (the mineral from which the blue colour is obtained) to give it the requisite tone[161]; and it is certain that the colour of the old celadons is due to the presence of oxide of iron, whether assisted or not by oxide of cobalt. Possibly the earliest celadons were the accidental result of the iron in a strongly ferruginous clay escaping in the heat of the kiln and imparting a green tinge to an otherwise colourless glaze. The conditions in the Lung–ch´üan district would have specially favoured such an accident, for the local clays were of the ferruginous kind, as is shown by their peculiarity, which we have already noted, of turning red or reddish brown when exposed without protection to the heat of the kiln. The presence of iron in greater or less quantity is a common feature of potter's clays all the world over, and it is usual in modern potteries to pass the clay over strong magnets in order to remove this disturbing element when a pure white ware is in view. This fact alone will explain the prevalence of green tints of the celadon type among the earlier Chinese wares, and observation of these results would naturally lead to the discovery that a certain quantity of particular clay mixed with the ordinary glaze would produce a beautiful green colour, resembling jade. The reddish brown spots occasionally observed in old celadon glazes are no doubt due to flaws in the glaze–covering, which allowed a partial exposure of the body, or to a local excess of iron oxide in the material. Like a great many other accidental effects, these were turned to account by the Chinese, and in some examples we find patches of brown which evince a deliberate intention (Plate 21). These effects are highly prized by the Japanese, who call the ware Tobi seiji or "spotted celadon."

The manufacture of celadon must have been very extensive in the Lung–ch´üan district. Besides the principal factories at Liu–t´ien Shih, there were minor works at Chin–ts´un already mentioned, and according to the T´ao lu[162] at Li–shui Hsien[163] in the Ch´u–chou Fu, the latter already operative in the Sung dynasty. Its wares were included in the comprehensive term Ch´u yao, and "the material was coarse and thick, the colour similar to that of Lung–ch´üan ware, both dark and light, but the workmanship was coarser."

At the beginning of the Ming dynasty, we are told[164] that the Lung–ch´üan factories were removed to Ch´u–chou, and that the ware made on the new site was green (ch´ing), with a white body which, like the older ware, assumed a red colour in the exposed parts, but that the ware was not so good as the old.Local tradition asserts that the celadon industry in the district came to an end with the Ming dynasty.[165]

Connoisseurs are much exercised over the differences between Sung and Ming celadons. The T´ao lu tells us nothing beyond the bare statement that the Ming ware was not so good, and the two general rules which have been laid down[166] for our guidance—viz. (1) that the colour of the Sung wares is deeper and more grass green, that of the Ming more grey green, and (2) that the bottoms of the Ming vessels are distinguished by an unglazed ring of reddish brown colour—can only be accepted with reserve. Of the two the colour test is probably the more reliable, but I have found too many exceptions in which the grey green occurs on pieces of obviously Sung origin to feel any great confidence in its guidance. The ring test breaks down in practice, and is illogical in its conception, implying, as it does, that the use of a circular support in the kiln was limited to one particular place and period. On the contrary, we know that this method of support was usual in the Siamese factories at Sawankalok,[167] and apparently before the Ming period, and as the Siamese potteries were started by Chinese, probably sent from Western China, it is only fair to suppose that this method of manufacture was in general use at an early date. The safest criterion of Sung workmanship is the style of the ware, and especially the boldness and freedom of the carved designs. In the Ming period the Sung patterns already exhibit an inevitable staleness and conventionality with a tendency to overcrowding of detail. In some cases, too, the designs are of a later order, and closely analogous to those of the blue and white Ming porcelains.

In addition to the Lung–ch´üan and Ch´u–chou celadons, which are readily recognised by their peculiar glaze and their reddish brown foot rims, there are many other kinds which are not easy to classify.Some of these have a dry, buff stoneware body and brownish green glaze, while others have a glaze of decided grey or blue grey tone. In conjecturing the origin of these we must take into consideration the private factories which existed under the Northern Sung at Ch´ên–liu[168] and other localities in the neighbourhood of the eastern capital (tung ching), now named K´ai–fêng Fu, in Honan. The Ko ku yao lun[169] describes the ware of these parts under the heading Tung yao[170]: "It is pale green (ch´ing) in colour, with fine crackle, and in many cases has a brown mouth and iron foot. Compared with Kuan ware it lacks the red tinge, and its material is coarse, wanting in fineness and lustre, and far from equalling that of the Kuan ware. At the present day (i.e. 1887) it is rarely seen." Other writers repeat this passage with little alteration, though the author of the T´ao lu adds that the clay was of black colour and the glaze of varying depth. Hsiang's Album includes one specimen of the tung ch´ing tz´ŭ, describing the colour as t´ieh ts´ui, which probably means the blue green shade of distant hills.[171] Tung ch´ing glaze is included in the list of those imitated in the Imperial factories about 1780, two kinds, pale and deep, being specified; and the T´ao lu[172] informs us that the Tung ch´ing was copied to a considerable extent at Ching–tê Chên in the early nineteenth century, and that the modern glaze was exactly like the old. That this modern glaze was only a variety of celadon is shown by the recipe given in the same work,[173] viz. "to add to the ordinary glaze some of the mixture containing ferruginous earth," which differs from that given for the modern Lung–ch´üan glaze only in the absence of the pinch of cobalt (see vol ii. , p. 189).

A verse from a poem by Chang–lei (1046–1106) indicates the green colour of the ware: "Green jade (pi yü) when carved makes a vessel; know it to be the porcelain (tz´ŭ) of the Tung kilns ."[174]

In the classification of old celadons due account must be taken of the imitations made from the earliest times at Ching–tê Chên.Many of these would be distinguishable by their white porcelain body, the ordinary porcelain clay of the district not having the peculiar qualities of the Lung–ch´üan and Ch´u–chou Fu material.In fact, we know that it has been a common practice in recent times among the Ching–tê Chên potters to dress the exposed parts of their ware with brown ferruginous earth when they wished to reproduce the "brown mouth or iron foot" of the archaic wares.Another method which was found effective by imitators of the antique was to use a coarse yellowish clay for the body of the ware.This, however, should be generally recognisable.But the skill of the Chinese copyist is proverbial, and a good instance of his cunning is given in the now celebrated letters of Père d'Entrecolles, a Jesuit missionary stationed at Ching–tê Chên in the K´ang Hsi period.The passage[175] is interesting enough to be quoted in full:

"The mandarin of Kim tê Chim, who honours me with his friendship, makes for his patrons at the Court presents of old porcelain which he has himself a genius for fabricating. I mean that he has discovered the art of imitating antique porcelain, or at least that of comparative antiquity; and he employs a number of workmen for this purpose. The material of these false Kou tom, viz. counterfeit antiques, is a yellowish clay, obtained in a place quite near Kim tê Chim, called Ma ngan chanThey are constructed very thick.The mandarin has given me a plate of this make, which weighs as much as ten ordinary plates.There is nothing peculiar in the manufacture of these kinds of porcelain beyond that they are covered with a glaze made of yellow stone, mingled with the ordinary glaze, the latter predominating in the mixture, which gives the porcelain a sea green colour.When it is fired it is placed in a very rich broth made of chicken and other meats; in this it is baked a second time, and after that it is put in the foulest drain that can be found and left for a month or more.On issuing from this drain it passes for three or four hundred years old, or at any rate for a representative of the preceding Ming dynasty, when porcelain of this colour and thickness was appreciated at Court. These counterfeit antiques resemble the genuine pieces also in their want of timbre when struck, and if one holds them to the ear they produce no reverberation."

The worthy father's acquaintance with the antiques was probably limited, or he would not have instanced the last quality as evidence of good imitation.On the contrary, the lack of timbre would be regarded by Chinese connoisseurs as indication of a spurious ware, the note of the old porcelains being one of the criteria of their excellence.But the passage is otherwise most instructive.

It should be remembered, too, that at the time of which d'Entrecolles speaks, an extensive use was being made at Ching–tê Chên of a beautiful celadon glaze on a fine white porcelain body.These celadons of the period will be discussed in their proper place, as they make no pretence of antiquity and are easily distinguished by their pure white body and pale soft green glaze.Indeed, they often have the ordinary white glaze under the base and a period mark in blue.

Another factory which made free use of the celadon glaze was that of Yang Chiang, province of Kuangtung.As a rule, the ware is recognisable by its reddish brown stoneware body, but in cases where the biscuit is lighter in colour and more porcellanous in texture, confusion may easily arise.

Nor must we forget the extensive manufacture of celadons outside China itself.The Corean wares have already been mentioned.As a rule, their soft velvety glaze is recognised by its peculiar bluish grey tone, difficult to describe but easy to remember when once seen.The colour, however, varies to distinctly greener and browner shades, which are liable to be confused with Chinese celadons of the Lung–ch´üan and northern types.Fortunately, most, though not all, of the Corean decorations are very characteristic, particularly the delicate inlaid designs[176] in white and black clays; and the finish of the ware underneath is usually distinctive, a very low foot rim, the base slightly convex, and the disfiguring presence of the sand, which in three little piles supported the ware in the kiln.

There are, however, quite a number of ambiguous celadons with a brownish green glaze, usually bowls, of which some are decorated inside with beautiful carved and moulded designs of bold foliage (Plate 18, Fig. 1) and even with the design of boys among flowering branches and the slight combed patterns which are found on the Corean white wares. Were it not for the apparently Chinese provenance of so many of these bowls, and the absence of the Corean characteristics in their bases, one would be tempted to class them as Corean on the strength of their general appearance. Probably we have in this group both the Chinese prototypes and the close imitations made by the Corean potters who followed these models just as they followed the white ware of Ting Chou. One of the combed bowls formerly treasured as a tea bowl in Japan is now in the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin, but unfortunately the Japanese name shuko–yaki, by which Dr. Kümmel informs me it was known in Japan, sheds no light on the question of its origin.

The Sawankalok wares of Siam, too, have already had a passing mention.These are easily distinguished by their coarse grey body, reddish at the base, and thin, watery green glaze, very transparent and showing a bluish efflorescence where it has run thick.Once seen, they are hardly likely to be confused with any Chinese celadon, except a few of the coarser Ming and later types, in which the glaze happens to be very pale and thin.The Siamese wares, moreover, usually have a small raw irregular ring under the base, made by the end of a tubular kiln support, and differing from the broad regular ring on the Lung–ch´üan dishes described above.

But the most puzzling of the external celadons are those made at various times and places in Japan.They are, as a rule, close and careful copies of Chinese types, with which they are readily confounded by persons not familiar with Japanese peculiarities.In many cases, too, they will puzzle the most expert.It is well–nigh impossible to put into words any distinctive criteria of these wares.The biscuit is usually white and porcellanous, and though it sometimes assumes a natural tinge of red at the base, the colour is not so deep and decided as on the Lung–ch´üan wares.The chief distinction is an inevitable Japanese flavour in the form and decoration of the ware, but this, again, is an intangible feature which can only be realised by the practised eye.Finally, it should be said that remarkably close copies of the celadon green glaze (and of the typical ornament as well) were made in Egypt and Persia in the late Middle Ages. At a short distance they might often be taken for Chinese, but on inspection the body will be found to have that soft, sandy texture which is an unmistakable characteristic of the near–Eastern pottery.

It is impossible to leave the subject of celadon without a few words on the distribution of the ware in the Middle Ages, though I have no intention of embarking on the lengthy discussion which the interesting nature of the subject invites, nor of reopening the much–debated Celadonfrage which elicited many interesting contributions[177] from Professors Karabacek, A. B. Meyer, and Hirth, and Dr. Bushell. Probably no single article of commerce can tell so much of the mediæval trade between China and the West as the old celadon porcelains whose fragments are constantly unearthed on the sites of the old–world trading stations. The caravan routes through Turkestan and the seaborne trade through the Eastern Archipelago and the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and east coast of Africa can be followed by porcelains deposited at the various trading centres and ports of call. Much, too, has been learnt from the writings of Chinese, Arab, and European travellers and geographers. Professor Hirth, as early as 1888, worked out the principal routes of Chinese seaborne trade from the "Records of Chinese Foreign Trade and Shipping,"[178] compiled by Chao Ju–kua about 1220 A.D., starting from the Tingui[179] of Marco Polo, which he identifies with Lung–ch´üan itself, and finishing in Egypt and Zanzibar. The porcelain was carried by land and river to the great port of Ch´üan–chou Fu, and thence in junks to Bruni in Borneo, Cochin China, and Cambodia, Java, Lambri, and Palembang, in Sumatra, where the traders of the East and West met and exchanged goods. Thence the trade proceeded to Quilom in Malabar, Guzerate, Cambray, and Malwa, and as far as Zanzibar. Numerous other localities might be mentioned, and much has been written[180] of the veneration in which old Chinese wares have always been held in the Philippines and Borneo, and of the magic powers attributed to the old dragon jars by the natives of these countries.

The green celadon was highly valued in India and Persia, where it was reputed to have the power of disclosing the presence of poison.An early reference to the Chinese porcelain occurs in the writings of the Persian geographer Yacut,[181] who mentions "four boxes full of Chinese porcelain and rock crystal" among the effects of a native of Dour–er–Raçibi in Khouzistan, who died in 913 a. d. The trade with Egypt is indicated in the much–quoted incident of the gift of forty pieces of Chinese porcelain sent from Egypt by Saladin to Nur–ed–din in Damascus in 1171, and by the later gift of porcelain vases sent in 1487 by the Sultan of Egypt to Lorenzo de' Medici. A large proportion of the celadons in our collections has been brought and still comes from India, Persia, and Egypt.[182] The Sultan's treasure at Constantinople[183] teems with celadons collected in mediæval times. Fragments of celadon are unearthed on almost every important mediæval site which is excavated in the East. The British Museum has small collections of such fragments from Bijapur in India, the island of Kais in the Persian Gulf, Rhages in Persia, Ephesus, Rhodes, Cairo, and Mombasa, to mention a few sites only. Fragments of celadon were found, in company with Chinese coins ranging in date from 990–1111 A.D., by Sir John Kirk and Lieut.C.Smith, near Kilwa in Zanzibar, and the former, while British representative in Zanzibar, was able to form a considerable collection of complete specimens which were treasured by the natives with almost religious care.A story told by Sir John Kirk illustrates the attitude of the native mind towards these treasured wares.A celadon dish with particularly fine carving was the subject of a family dispute, and to satisfy the rival claims a local Solomon decided that it should be divided between the disputants. One large fragment of it is now in Sir John Kirk's collection, which includes many interesting dishes, crackled and plain, and ranging in colour from dark olive green to the pale watery tint of the Sawankalok[184] wares. Other specimens of interest are the large, wide–mouthed, bowl–shaped vases with sides deeply ribbed or carved in high relief with bold floral designs. They have the peculiar feature of being constructed at first without a bottom, which was separately made in the form of a saucer and dropped in, the glaze holding it firmly in position. Similar vases[185] have been found in India and elsewhere. One of the first pieces of celadon to arrive in this country was the celebrated Warham bowl, which was bequeathed to New College, Oxford, in 1530 by Archbishop Warham. It is of dull grey green celadon, the outside faintly engraved with four lotus petals, each containing a trefoil, and in the bottom inside is the character ch´ing (pure) surrounded by rays. It has a fine silver–gilt mount of English make.[186] It would be possible to multiply references to the traffic in celadon wares which was carried on briskly between China and the West in the Middle Ages, but enough has been said to give some idea of the extent and nature of the trade, which was mainly in the coarsest types of ware. Apart from the unlikelihood that very fine or precious porcelains would be embarked on such long and hazardous journeys, there was actually a law in force in China as early as the eighth century[187] which forbade, under penalty of imprisonment, the exportation of "precious and rare articles," anticipating by a thousand years the restrictive legislation of the Italian Government.