Page 127 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ju, Kuan, and Ko Wares 55

It is not to be supposed that Ju Chou had the monopoly of the

Aparticular kind of ch'ing ware in which its factories excelled.

number of other and not distant potteries were engaged in a similar

Wemanufacture, though with less conspicuous success. read,^

for instance, that " it was made in the districts of T'ang, Teng,

and Yao on the north of the (Yellow) River, though the productions

of Ju Chou were the best."

It has been already remarked that we possess no authenticated

example of Ju porcelain. Doubtless there are many pieces which

are tentatively assigned to Ju Chou by hopeful owners. But it

must be confessed that the few which have hitherto been published

as such are singularly unfortunate choices. Dr. B. Laufer, for

instance, in his excellent work on Jade,^ incidentally figures two

vases for divining rods of a well-known form, of which he hazards

the remark " that both have presumably been made in the kilns

of Ju-chou."

Dr. Laufer does not claim to have made a particular study

of Chinese ceramics apart from the Han pottery, but if these pieces

are Ju yao, then Ju yao, so far from having been extinct for some

centuries, is a comparatively common ware. Another instance is
the " funeral vase," now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, pub-

lished^ by its former owner. Dr. Bushell, as a specimen of Ju ware,

mainly, I suppose, on the strength of the description, " Kuan Yin

vase of Ju Yao," engraved on the stand by the Chinese collector *

through whose hands it had previously passed. This form of

certificate is always open to doubt, and had it really been a specimen

of undoubted Ju yao, it is most improbable that the Chinese would

have allowed it at that time to pass into foreign hands.

But a glance at the piece itself is sufficient to dispel all illusions

on that point. So far from excelling other Sung wares, this piece

is decidedly inferior in every detail to the most ordinary Sung

specimens. It has a coarse, sandy, greyish buff body and impure

greyish green tinge, such as appears on some of the early funeral

wares which make no pretence to finished workmanship. The

ornament consists of applied reliefs perfunctorily moulded, and

1 In the Cho king lu, published in 1368, but of special interest because it repeats
the statements of a Sung writer, Yeh-chih, author of the Yiian chai pi hing.

2 Op. cit., plate 20.

* Cosmo Monkhouse, Chinese Porcelain, plate 1, and Bushell, Chinese Art, vol. ii.,

fig. 7.

*Liu Yen-t'ing.