Page 133 - 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 59

Fig. 1 of Plate 16 gives a fair idea of it. The colour is precisely
that of the most beautiful bluish green Coreaii bowls, but the usual
Corean finish and the sand marks on the base are absent, and the
glaze is broken by a large, irregular crackle. Surely this cannot
be far removed from the "secret colour" of the Yiieh ware and
the fen ch'ing of the Ju ?

Another specimen of reputed Ju ware is an exquisite peach-
shaped brush-washer or cup in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate
15, Fig. 1). It has a dark-coloured body and a beautiful smooth
glaze of pale greenish grey tint, and w^hatever its origin, it is
certainly a refined and beautiful example of the potter's art.

Kuan yao *^§g

This ware is only second in importance to the Ju yao, and its

exact nature is scarcely less speculative. The name, which means

" official "or " Imperial " ware, seems to have been first applied

to the porcelains made for Imperial use at the Northern Sung

capital, the modern K'ai-feng Fu, in Honan. The factory was

established at the command of the Emperor Hui Tsung in the

Cheng Ho period (1111-1117), according to the earliest ^ or in the

preceding Ta Kuan period (1107-1110), according to a later ^ account.

Its career, however, was interrupted by the flight of the Sung Court

south of the Yangtze in 1127, though it is probable that a number

of the potters followed the Court. At any rate, the traditions of

the original factory were continued at the new capital. Hang Chou,

by an official named Shao Ch' eng-shang, who set up kilns in the

Imperial precincts, in the department called Hsiu nei ssu. Another

writer locates this factory under the Phoenix Hill. Shortly after-

wards a new pottery was started " below the suburban altar " at

Hang Chou, which copied the forms of the older Kuan ware, but

Wewithout equalling its quality. have then no fewer than three

different makes all included in the name of Kuan yao, all following

one tradition but differing, as we shall see, in material and quality.

The first is the K'ai-feng Fu variety. The earlier writers in

^ The Cho king lu, published in 1368, but based on a thirteenth-century Sung work

(see p. 55).

2 The T'ao lu (bk. vi., fol. 2 verso). It is obvious that the term Kuan yao (Imperial

— —ware) is liable to cause confusion, as it might be and indeed was equally applied

to any ware made at any time at the Imperial factory. In recognition of this fact
the Sung Kuan yao was sometimes named in later writers Ta Kuan :^||| ware,
after the Ta Kuan period.