Page 92 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

The term celadon was derived from the name of

the hero of a novel d'Urfe's L'Astree a courtier

in rustic dress, who, in the seventeenth century, rep-
resented to Frenchmen the type of an amorous

shepherd. On the stage this character was always

clad in green, relieved by tints of blue or grey, and

when specimens of Chinese yu-yao, Kuan-yao, and
Lung-chuan-yao began to come into French collec-

tions, the colour of the ware was identified with that

of the shepherd's clothes. But long before Europe

knew anything of such ware, large quantities of it

had found their way to Arabia, Persia, Egypt,

Morocco, the East Coast of Africa, Japan, India,

Borneo, Ceram, and other places. The majority of
such pieces were, of course, the more solid and heav-

ier productions of the Chinese factories, and it is

probably to their durable qualities, as much as to the
esteem in which they were held, that they owed

their preservation through long centuries. Their
large numbers and the wide area throughout which
they are found has suggested to some writers the idea
that China alone must not be credited with their

manufacture. Professor Karabacek, of Vienna, is

foremost among these theorists. In the writings of
Hadschi Chalfa, a celebrated encyclopedist, who died

in 1658, the Vienna savant found a passage to the
effect that " the precious, magnificent celadon dishes

and other vessels seen in the seventeenth century were

manufactured and exported at Martaban in 55

Pegu.

M. Jacquemart had already suggested a similar belief.

Speaking of Persian Keramics, he wrote :

Celadons are very common in Persia they have the beau-
;

tiful sea-green tint of the old Chinese celadons, and are to be

recognised only by their style. Some are simply gadrooned

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