Page 29 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

CHINESE PORCELAIN.

INTRODUCTION.

The manufacture of porcelain in China is said to have com-
menced during the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 25 A.D.), but for
all in the celadon class, it is needless
practical purpose, except
for us to concern ourselves with anything earlier than the Ming
dynasty (1368-1644) ; and probably it is to the reign of the
Tsing emperor, Kang-he (1661-1722), the second of the Tartar
that we must date most of the old of
dynasty, specimens
Chinese porcelain now to be met with. There can be no
doubt that China from dates
exported porcelain very early ;
and in 1280 Marco Polo saw it being made, and states it was
sent all over the world. We find traces of this trade in
early
India, Persia, Egypt, the Malay Archipelago, and Zanzibar,
while pieces may have reached Europe in this indirect way, but
it was the in the sixteenth that
through Portuguese century
Europe first received consignments of china-ware via the Cape.
The celadon to the New College, Oxford, about
cup, given
1504-1532, is probably the oldest historical piece in England.
the of Malacca from the the
In 1640, by taking Portuguese,
Dutch obtained in the far East, and for a time
supremacy
became the chief into of Chinese
importers Europe products,
to be followed later our own East India
by Company.
Sir A. W. Franks " All we know the fabrics
says, respecting
of the former is derived from the valuable
country [China]
history of the manufactory of King-te-chin, prepared by a
local in 1815, from older native documents, and
magistrate
which has been most translated and commented
ably upon by
31. Stanislas Julien . . . but it will be seen that from want
;
B