Page 103 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

The T'ang Dynasty, 618-906 a.d. 39

an important clue in another Chinese work. Hsii Ching, who accom-

panied the Chinese Ambassador to Corea in 1125, in a description
of the Corean wares, makes the remark that " the rest of them

have a general likeness to the old pi se ware of Yiieh Chou and the
new Ju Chou ware." ^ Fortunately, we can speak with consider-

able confidence of the Corean wares of this time, many examples

of which have been taken from the tombs of the period. The British

Museum has a fair number of examples, quite enough to show the

typical Corean glaze, a soft grey green celadon of decidedly bluish

tint, a thick smooth glaze often of great delicacy and beauty of

tone.

In view of this the colour of the Yiieh bowls, the blue-green

of the hills, is easily visualised. But China boasts so many makes
of celadon 2 that he would be a bold man who would single out
any one piece and say this is Yiieh ware. Among the numerous

specimens of celadon which have reached Europe from various

sources it is far from improbable that some were baked in the

Yiieh kilns, but at present, alas, we are impotent to identify

them.

The author of the Ching-te Chen fao lu^ places the Hsing Chou

factory at the modern Hsing-t'ai Hsien, a dependency of Shun-te

Fu, in Chih-li. Little else is recorded about the white Hsing ware

beyond a general statement in the annals of the T'ang dynasty *
that the " white ware (iz'u) cups of Nei Ch'iu were used by rich

and poor throughout the empire." Nei Ch'iu, it should be ex-

Weplained, is identified as a township in the Hsing Chou. may

add that the ware of both Yiieh Chou and Hsing Chou was used

for " musical cups " by Kuo Tao-yiian.^ One of the criteria which

the Chinese recognise in distinguishing ordinary pottery from the

finer wares of a porcellanous nature is the note emitted by the ware

when smartly tapped with the finger, and we may fairly infer that

any bowls which were suitable for use as musical chimes would

be of a sonorous, hard fired material if not actually porcelain.

1 For further reference to this important passage, see p. 54.

2 See ch. vi. 3 Bk. vii., fol. 13 recto.

* T'ang kuo shih pu, quoted in the T'ao shuo ; see Bushell's translation {Chinese

Pottery and Porcelain), p. 36. It is worthy of note that Hsing Chou was in the same

district as Tz'u Chou, which has long been celebrated for its pottery. See p. 101.
° As stated in Yo fu isa lu, a tenth-century work on music, quoted in the T'ao

shuo, bk. ii., fol. 4 recto. Twelve cups were used, and they were sometimes marked

with numerals.