Page 136 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

26 CHINESE ART.

glazes consists of fortuitous blotches of red, due to oxidation in the
kiln, contrasting vividly with the colour of the surrounding ground.
These blotches occasionally take on accidentally the shape of
butterflies or some other natural form, when they are classed as a
variety of yao-pien, or " furnace-transmutation." The ordinary
Yuan Tz'ii, or " Yuan (dynasty) Porcelain " of Chinese collectors
resembles generally the imperial ware of the Sung dynasty, being
fashioned in the same lines, and only differing in comparative
coarseness and inferior technique, so that it need not delay us
further.
The Ko Yao of the Sung dynasty was the early crackled ware
fabricated by a potter named Chang the Elder, a native of Liu-t'ien,
in the jurisdiction of Lung-ch'iian-hsien, in the twelfth century
of our era. The early Ko Yao was distinguished especially for
"
its crackling, looking as if it were " broken into a hundred pieces
(po-sui), or " like the roe of a fish " (y/i-tzii)—the French iruiti-e.
The principal colour of this crackled glaze were fen-ch'ing, or " pale
purple," due to manganiferous cobalt, and mi-sc, or " millet-
coloured," a bright yellow derived from antimony. Such was
the original Ko Yao : the name has since been extended to include
every kind of porcelain covered with crackled monochrome glazes in
all shades of celadon, gray, and white. The old crackled ware was
highly prized in Borneo and other islands of the Eastern Archipelago
as far east as Ceram, and it figures largely among the relics of
ancient Chinese porcelain brought to our museums from these
parts.
The Ting Yao was made at Ting-chou in the province of Chihli.
The main out-turn was white, but one variety was dark reddish
brown, and another, very rare, as black as lacquer. The white was
of two classes: the first called Pat Ting, or Ten Ting, being as
white as flour : the second called T'u Ting, of a yellowish clayey
tint. This porcelain, of delicate resonant body, invested with
a soft-looking fluent glaze of ivory-white tone, is probably more