Page 127 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Wan Li (1573-1619) 65

the Chinese empire. " There were also elegantly formed pots

{hu), in colour pale green, like Kuan and Ko wares, but with-

out the ice crackle, and golden brown ^ tea pots with reddish
tinge, imitating the contemporary wares of the Ch'en family at

Yi-hsing, engraved underneath with the four characters, Hu yin

tao jen.^''

The " red cloud " cups are eulogised by the poet Li Jih-hua
in a verse addressed to their maker as fit to be " started from the
orchid pavilion to float down the nine-bend river." ^

The two other potters of this period whose names have survived
are Ou of Yi-hsing fame (vol. i., p. 181) and Chou Tan-ch'iian, whose
wonderful imitations of Sung Ting ware have been described in vol. i,,
p. 94. Many clever imitations of this latter porcelain were made

at Ching-te Chen in the Wan Li period, and a special material,

chHng-fien ^ stone, was employed for the purpose ; but the followers

of Ch'ou Tan-ch'iian were not so successful as their master, and
their wares are described as over-elaborate in decoration and quite

inferior to Ch'ou's productions. There was one type, however,
which is specially mentioned, the oblong rectangular boxes made
to hold seal-vermilion. These are described in a sixteenth-century
work •* as either pure white or painted in blue, and usually six or
seven inches long. They are accorded a paragraph in the T'ao
shuo ^ under the heading of fang ting or " imitation Ting ware,"
and they were probably of that soft-looking, creamy white crackled
ware to which Western collectors have given the misleading name

of " soft paste." ^

Another private manufacture specially mentioned in the T'ao
lu 7 was located in a street called Hsiao nan /h '^> where, we are told,
" they made wares of small size only, like a squatting frog, and

^ TzQ. chin. Golden brown with reddish tinge (tzil chin tai chu), accurately describes
one kind of stoneware tea pots made at Yi-hsing (p. 177) ; but it is not stated whether
Hao's imitations were in stoneware or porcelain.

* An allusion to the celebrated orchid pa^^lion at Kuei-chi, in Chekiang, the meet-

ing place of a coterie of scholars in the fourth century. Tlie scene in which they floated
their wine cups on the river has been popularised in pictorial art. See Plate 104

Fig. 1.

* The K'ao p'an yii shih.
* Bk. vi., fol. 16 recto.
« See p. 140.
' Bk. v., fol. 10 verso, under the heading, Hsiao nan ijao (Little South Street

wares).

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