Page 127 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

SUNG AND YUAN WARES

nothing is known. It is recorded that an emperor of
the Sui dynasty (583 A.D.) ordered the potters of the
district to furnish keramic wares to the Court by way
of impost. Not till the beginning of the seventh

century, however, is any clue obtained as to the

wares themselves. The Tao-yao and the Ho-yao
described in a previous chapter then made their

appearance and were compared to white jade.

The manufactures of the place received no further

notice for nearly four hundred years, when, in the
period Ching-te (10041007), the Sung emperor
Chin-tsong conferred on the workers in a special
factory the title of " Keramists to the Court."

When it is remembered that under the Sung rulers

wares of such note as the Ting-yaoy the Kuan-yao, the
Ju-yao, and the Chun-yao, were produced, the conclu-
sion cannot be avoided that the potters of Ching-te-
chen must have developed a high degree of skill to

be honoured by such a distinction. The Tao-lu,

though nominally a history of Ching-te-chen ker-
amics, does not describe the wares manufactured

there at this epoch, further than to say that their pate
was white and comparatively thin, that their surface
was polished and lustrous, and that they were distin-
guished alike by the eclat of their glaze, the fineness
of their biscuit, and the elegance of their shape.

Imitations of them are said to have found ready pur-
chasers throughout the empire. That alone would
suffice to show that the wares did not differ from their

contemporaries in excellence of technique. They

were, in fact, celadons, and white, or rice-white, pieces.

The emperor ordered that specimens intended for im-

perial use should be marked Ching-te nien chi, which
signifies " made (cfo) in the Ching-te year." In what

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