Page 70 - Chinese Art, Vol II By Stephen W. Bushell

12 CHINESE ART.

buffalo horn (Trapa bicornis) ; the feet are a nelumbium, Uchi, and
walnut ; a mushroom forms the lid. There is an impressed seal-
mark on the body near the spout.
The Yi-hsing potteries flourished most under the Ming dynasty,
having been founded by Kung Ch'un in the reign of Cheng Te
^1506-1521). A more famous potter named Ou worked here during
the reign of Wan Li (1573-1619), who excelled in the imitation of the
antique. He is said to have successfully reproduced the crackled
glaze of the ancient Ko Yao, as well as the purple shades of the old
imperial ware and the variegated Chun-chou pottery of the Sung
dynasty, upon the characteristic brown stoneware of the place.
Shortly after his time a special book was written by Chou Kao-ch'i,
under the title Yang-hsien ming hu hsi, an account of the teapots
{ming hu) made here (Yang-hsien being an old name of Yi-hsing),
with the story of the families of potters, much of which has
recently been translated by Captain F. Brinkley in his Japan
and China, vol. ix.
When this faience was first imported into Europe it was called
boccaro by the Portuguese, and the name has remained. Bottger,
the inventor of Saxon porcelain, first tried his hand at the imitation
of the material in 1708, with some success, although his essays
hardly deserved the epithet of porcelaine rouge with which they were
baptized. The Elers copied the red varieties with great exactness
in Staffordshire, so that it is not always easy, according to Sir
Wollaston Franks, to distinguish their productions from Oriental
examples.
KuANG Yao.— ^The ceramic productions of the province of Kuang-
tung are included under the general Chinese term of Kiinng yao,
Kuang being a contraction of the name of the province, yao,
"
pottery." The manufactures are all of stoneware, no porcelain
being fabricated in this province, although quantities are brought
overland " in the white " from Ching-te-chen to Canton, to be
decorated in the Canton workshops with enamel colours and refired