Page 114 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

In order to complete this important branch of the
subject, it will be advisable at once to carry the his-

tory of celadon down to modern times. In addition

to the Lung-chuan-yao manufactured at Ch'u-chou-fu,
in Chekiang, up to the middle of the sixteenth cen-

tury, and the imitations of Ko-yao and Kuan-yao made
by Hu-kung and Ngeu about the close of that cen-

tury and the beginning of the next, celadons were also

produced during the Ming dynasty at the Imperial
Keramic Factory of Ching-te-chen, in the province of

Kiang-si. This factory's early history will presently

be given. Here it is enough to say that, under the
Ming emperors, its experts had become incomparably
the most renowned in the Middle Kingdom. They
produced many varieties of ware showing the highest
technical skill and artistic excellence, and among

these celadons were undoubtedly numbered. It is
recorded that, in the year 1430, some twenty-five

kilns, established at the beginning of the dynasty

(1368) for the manufacture of large fish-bowls orna-
mented with dragons, were converted into celadon

(C/img-yao) kilns, and that the ware produced at
them, being intended for the use of the Court, was

termed Kuan-yao. That these celadons, in name iden-

tical with, and in appearance closely resembling, the

original Kuan-yao of the Sung dynasty, may often

have been mistaken for the latter by connoisseurs of

later times, is easily conceivable. They were, at any

rate, beautiful examples of their class, and there can

be no doubt that some of the most prized specimens

of celadon now extant came from the hands of the

HowChing-te-chen experts. then are these Ching-

te-chen pieces to be distinguished from similar wares
of earlier date and different place of manufacture ?

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