Page 89 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

WARES OF "SUNG" DYNASTY

a hare, are especially lauded. Examples certainly
exist in Chinese collections, but the ware seems to be

virtually unknown to the ordinary experts of the
Middle Kingdom, and is perhaps more difficult to

find there than any of the products of the Sung kilns.

In Japan, on the contrary, it has always been so much

prized and so carefully preserved as to be familiar to
connoisseurs and generally present in good collections.
During the period of art decay and social confusion
that immediately followed the fall of feudalism, a

few pieces found their way into the market, but the

opportunity thus offered to collectors did not long
continue.

A point worthy of note with respect to the Chien-

yao is that it was one of the very few esteemed wares
of ancient times which the potters of Ching-te-chen

do not appear to have imitated either in the Ming or

Tsing dynasties. To what circumstance this distinc-
Thetion is attributable, it is difficult to surmise.

Tao-lu shows that the Chien-yang factory was in a
flourishing condition at the beginning of the Tuan
dynasty (1260), but of its subsequent fate nothing is

known except that it had ceased to produce ware of

the above type before the end of the fourteenth

century.

The Chien-yao presents two varieties of pate. Both

are stone-ware, but while the one is dark and coarse,

with a dull timbre, the other is of somewhat lighter
colour, tolerably close in texture, and almost as hard

as porcelain. The former should properly be distin-
guished as U-ni-yao, or " raven-clay ware." Manu-

factured in the same district of Chien-ning-fu, in
Fuhkien province, it was nevertheless a product
greatly inferior to the finer varieties of Chien-yao.

59