Page 67 - Jindezhen Porcelain Production of the 19th C. by Ellen Huang, Univ. San Diego 2008
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copies of the book, a collectors’ item in its own right: it was silk bound with gilt lettering
and included eighty-three pages of descriptive text in Chinese and English and eighty-
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three color plates. English collector Stephen Bushell had translated the Xiang
Yuanbian text into English and annotated the Chinese text in an earlier 1880s version
published in London; Guo and Ferguson’s version differed from the original and
Bushell’s in that it included a short biography of the Ming collector and colored
lithographic portrait of Xiang Yuanbian (Figure 11 and Figure 12). Later, when writing
his comprehensive Survey of Chinese Art, which was published in Shanghai by the
Commercial Press in 1939, Ferguson referenced Guo’s personal collection of art and
cataloguing abilities. Clearly, their joint efforts in porcelain and art authentication and
publishing had convinced Ferguson of Guo’s abilities such that he vouched for and
trusted Guo’s judgment in the authentication and valuation of “art.”
Given Guo’s personal history, some of the prevalent themes in his “Brief
Description of Porcelain” (Ciqi gaishuo) should be mentioned. His essay began with the
origins of porcelain and the difference between porcelain and pottery, or “ci ନ” and “tao
ௗ.” This was an important issue Guo stressed in a study of a ceramic lute found in the
collections of the Palace Museum in 1929. As Guo defined in 1929 and later echoed in
1935, “We must remember that the production of pottery preceded that of porcelain. The
difference between pottery and porcelain objects is found in the material of which they
are made and not in the glaze. The body of pottery vessels is clay; the body of the
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porcelain is decomposed stone found only in certain localities.” In his porcelain essay,
Guo again stressed that “porcelain production can only happen in certain areas” (chan ci
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you yiding quyu). When Guo wrote these essays, the ceramic wares in vogue in
