Page 58 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

24 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

\en temple in the capital, where porcelain bowls were exhibited, and

rich men came to buy. For Wan Li porcelain the usual price was
a few taels of silver; for Hsiian Te and Ch'eng Hua marked

specimens two to five times that amount ; but " chicken cups "
could not be bought for less than a hundred taels, and yet those
who had the means did not hesitate to buy, and porcelain realised
higher prices than jade.

An illustration in Hsiang's Album ^ gives a poor idea of one of

these porcelain gems, which is described as having the sides thin as
a cicada's wing, and so translucent that the fingernail could be
seen through them. The design, a hen and chicken beside a cock's-

comb plant growing near a rock, is said to have been in the style
of a celebrated Sung artist. The painting is in " applied colours
{fu se), thick and thin," and apparently yellow, green, aubergine
and brown. Like that of the grape-vine cup, it is evidently in
enamels on the glaze.

8. Ruby red bowls (pao shao waiif- and cinnabar red dishes

{chii sha p'an). These were, no doubt, the same as the " precious
stone red {pao shih hung) and cinnabar bowls red as the sun,"
described in the chapter on Hsiian Te porcelain. Kao Chiang-
ts'un remarks on these that " among the Ch'eng wares are chicken
cups, ruby red bowls, and cinnabar dishes, very cleverly made,
and fine, and more costly than Sung porcelain,"

4. Wine cups with figure subjects and lotuses.
5. " Blue and white " {ch'ing hua) wine cups, thin as paper.
6. Small cups with plants and insects {is'ao ch^ung).^
7. Shallow cups with the five sacrificial altar vessels {wu kung

yang).

8. Small plates for chopsticks, painted in colours.

9. Incense boxes.

10. All manner of small jars.
All these varieties are mentioned in the Po ivii yao Ian, which
gives the place of honour to the grape-vine stem-cups. The only
kind specifically described as blue and white is No. 5, and the
inference is that the other types were usually polychrome.

1 Op. cit., fig. 64.
2 Bushell ( T'ao shuo, p. 142) gives the misleading version, " bowls enamelled with
jewels " and " jewel-enamelled bowls," omitting in his translation the note in the text
which explains their true meaning as pao sliih hung or ruby red.

^^* is'ao ch'ung can equally well mean " plants and insects " or " grass insects,"

i.e. grasshoppers. In fact, Julien translated the phrase in the latter sense.