Page 39 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

POTTERY.
5
Pottery in China passed through the usual stages of sun-dried
and burned bricks, tiles, architectural ornaments, culinary utensils,
funeral and sacrificial vases and dishes. The most ancient speci-
mens dug up throughout Eastern Asia, from the burial mounds of
Japan and Korea, as well as in China, resemble generally both in
form and fabric the prehistoric pottery of other parts of the world.
They are unglazed, and only the later examples show marks of
having been fashioned on the wheel. The Chinese claim the inven-
tion of the potter's wheel, like many of the great nations of antiquity,
and attribute it to a director of pottery attached to the court of
the legendary emperor Huang Ti (Vol. I., p. 14), who " first taught
the art of welding clay." The ancient emperor Shun, who was a
potter before he was called to the throne, is said to have been
a special patron of the art, the wine vessels and earthenware coffins
of his time being alluded to in the ritual classics of the Chou dynasty.
Wu Wang, the founder of the Chou dynasty, aftei his conquest
of China in the 12th century B.C., is recorded to have sought out
a lineal descendant of the emperor Shun, on account of his hereditary
skill in the manufacture of pottery, to have given him his eldest
daughter in marriage, and the fief of the state of Ch'en.nowCh'en-
chou Fu in the province of Honan, to keep up there the ancestral
worship of his accomplished ancestor. From this last dignitary,
by the way, the famous Buddhist monk Yuan-Chuang, whose
travels in India in the 7th century are so well known, claims direct
descent.*
There are many other references to pottery in the books of
the Chou dynasty. The K'ao kimg chi, cited in Vol. I., p. 72, has
a short section on the pottery made for the public markets of the
time, which gives the names and measurements of several kinds
of cooking vessels, sacrificial vases and dishes, in the fabrication
of which the different processes of throwuig upon the wheel and
* See Watters' Yuan Chwahg, published by the Royal Asiatic Society,
1904 (Vol I., p. 7).