Page 378 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

228 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

published with a preface by Li Chii-lai. His autobiography is incor-

porated in the Chiang hsi fung chih ; his twenty descriptions of

the processes of porcelain manufacture are quoted in the T'ao shuo

and the T'ao lu, and in themselves form a valuable treatise on

Chinese porcelain ; and before taking up his post at Huai-an Fu

in 1736 he collected together, for the benefit of his successors at

Ching-te Chen, the accumulated notes and memoranda of eight

years. This last work is known as the T'ao ch'eng shih yu kao

(" Draughts of Instructions on the Manufacture of Porcelain "),

and the preface ^ quoted in the Annals of Fou-liang furnishes some

Weinteresting details concerning T'ang's labours. learn, for in-

stance, that when he was appointed to the factory at Ching-te

Ch^n in 1728, he was " unacquainted wdth the finer details of the

porcelain manufacture in the province of Kiangsi," having never

been there before. He worked with heart and strength, however,

sleeping and eating with the workmen during a voluntary appren-
ticeship of three years, until in 1731 " he had conquered his ignor-

ance of the materials and processes of firing, and although he could

not claim familiarity with all the laws of transformation, his know-

ledge was much increased."

The commissionership of the customs was transferred in 1739
from Huai-an Fu to Kiu-kiang, which is close to the point of junc-

tion between the Po-yang Lake and the Yangtze, and considerably

nearer to the Imperial factory at Ching-te Chen, the control of

which remained in T'ang's hands until 1749.

The Ching-te Chen T'ao lu ^ is almost verbose on the subject

of T'ang's achievements. He had a profound knowledge, it tells

us, of the properties of the different kinds of clay and of the action

of the fire upon them, and he took every care in the selection of

proper materials, so that his wares were all exquisite, lustrous, and

of perfect purity. In imitating the celebrated wares of antiquity

he never failed to make an exact copy, and in the imitation of

all sorts of famous glazes there were none which he could not

cleverly reproduce. There was, in fact, nothing that he could

not successfully accomplish. Furthermore, his novelties ^ included

1 Translated by Bushcll, O. C. A., p. 398.

2 Bk. v., fol. 12.

^X^Si. y" fisin shih, lit, "also he newly made." This is undoubtedly the sense

given by the Chinese original, and Julien renders it " il avait nouvellement mis en
ceuvre." Bushell, on the other hand, translates: " He also made porcelain decorated

with the various coloured glazes neivly invented," a reading which makes the word chih