Page 54 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

superiority in respect of delicacy of pate and purity of
colour thus rested with
the Pai-ting. On the other

hand, it is certain that technical processes were con-

tinually progressing through this long interval, and

that the ware of the thirteenth century appreciably

excelled that of the tenth in many important features.

Chinese authors themselves state that the most beau-

tiful pieces of northern Ting-yao were manufactured
in the interval between 1 1 1 1 and 1125; that is to

say, just before political troubles compelled the trans-
fer of the factory from Ting-chou to Nan-chang. It

is reasonable to suppose that the potters did not leave

their technical skill behind them at Ting-chou, and

that their work in the south continued to improve as

it had done in the north. But there is little to guide

in this matter. Practical experience of the Ting-yao

of the Sung dynasty leaves the student completely in

the dark in respect of such fine distinctions as Pai-

ting and Nan-ting.
It will be well to pass from the Ting-yao to the

yu-yao because the latter is said to have had its origin

in technical defects of the former. The Tao-lu says

that the glaze of the Ting-yao was often disfigured by
fissures and other faults, due to imperfectly prepared
materials or unskilled stoving. These blemishes

proved so embarrassing and unavoidable that, in 1 130
A.D., imperial orders were issued for the establishment

of a special factory at Juchou, in the province of
AKiang-su. Here the yu-yao was produced.
Chi-

nese writer, whose work was published at the close

of the sixteenth century, says that the Chat and Ju

porcelains, though the best of all, had ceased to exist

in his time. The same writer's father, however,

mentions that in his day specimens of yu-yao were