Page 378 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day
P. 378
228 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain
published with a preface by Li Chii-lai. His autobiography is incor-
porated in the Chiang hsi fung chih ; his twenty descriptions of
the processes of porcelain manufacture are quoted in the T'ao shuo
and the T'ao lu, and in themselves form a valuable treatise on
Chinese porcelain ; and before taking up his post at Huai-an Fu
in 1736 he collected together, for the benefit of his successors at
Ching-te Chen, the accumulated notes and memoranda of eight
years. This last work is known as the T'ao ch'eng shih yu kao
(" Draughts of Instructions on the Manufacture of Porcelain "),
and the preface ^ quoted in the Annals of Fou-liang furnishes some
Weinteresting details concerning T'ang's labours. learn, for in-
stance, that when he was appointed to the factory at Ching-te
Ch^n in 1728, he was " unacquainted wdth the finer details of the
porcelain manufacture in the province of Kiangsi," having never
been there before. He worked with heart and strength, however,
sleeping and eating with the workmen during a voluntary appren-
ticeship of three years, until in 1731 " he had conquered his ignor-
ance of the materials and processes of firing, and although he could
not claim familiarity with all the laws of transformation, his know-
ledge was much increased."
The commissionership of the customs was transferred in 1739
from Huai-an Fu to Kiu-kiang, which is close to the point of junc-
tion between the Po-yang Lake and the Yangtze, and considerably
nearer to the Imperial factory at Ching-te Chen, the control of
which remained in T'ang's hands until 1749.
The Ching-te Chen T'ao lu ^ is almost verbose on the subject
of T'ang's achievements. He had a profound knowledge, it tells
us, of the properties of the different kinds of clay and of the action
of the fire upon them, and he took every care in the selection of
proper materials, so that his wares were all exquisite, lustrous, and
of perfect purity. In imitating the celebrated wares of antiquity
he never failed to make an exact copy, and in the imitation of
all sorts of famous glazes there were none which he could not
cleverly reproduce. There was, in fact, nothing that he could
not successfully accomplish. Furthermore, his novelties ^ included
1 Translated by Bushcll, O. C. A., p. 398.
2 Bk. v., fol. 12.
^X^Si. y" fisin shih, lit, "also he newly made." This is undoubtedly the sense
given by the Chinese original, and Julien renders it " il avait nouvellement mis en
ceuvre." Bushell, on the other hand, translates: " He also made porcelain decorated
with the various coloured glazes neivly invented," a reading which makes the word chih