Page 63 - J. P Morgan Collection of Chinese Art and Porcelain

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

glass, and could hardly have mistaken the material,
so that their evidence is of special value.

Passing on to the Emperor Shih Tsung (954-959)
of the Posterior Chou, a brief dynasty established at
K'ai-feng-fu just before the Sung, we have a glimpse
of a celebrated production known afterwards as Ch'ai
yao, Ch'ai being the name of the reigning house.
The porcelain was ordered at this time by imperial

rescript to be:

"As blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper, and

as resonant as a musical stone of jade."

This eclipsed in its delicacy all that preceded it.

Fragments were mounted in gold and worn as jewels,
but it soon became so rare that it was described as a

phantom.
The various delicate wares referred to in the above

extracts have all probably long since disappeared,

and we must be content with literary evidence of their
existence. The Chinese delight in literary research,
as much as they fear to disturb the rest of the dead
by digging in the ground, so that we have no tangible

proof, so far, of the occurrence of true porcelain, and
can only hope for the future appearance of an actual

specimen of early date. Still we may reasonably ac-

cept the conclusion of the best native scholarship that

porcelain was first made in the Han dynasty, without

trying, as Stanislas Julien has tried on very insuffi-
cient grounds, to fix the precise date of its invention.

CLASSIFICATION OF CHINESE PORCELAIN

A correct classification should be primarily chron-

ological, and the specimens should be, secondarily,
grouped under the headings of the localities at which

they were produced, and, thirdly, each group may be

subdivided, if necessary, according to the fabric,
technique, and style of decoration of the pieces of