Page 159 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Lung-ch'iian yao ^^

and the various Chinese accounts agree in distinguishing two
broad classes, the one having a thin body of fine material, and
the other a thick body of coarser and heavier make.

The first of these two classes includes the Chang yao, or ware

of the younger Chang, of which the Ch'ing pi ts'ang gives the follow-
ing description : " There is one kind in the manufacture of which
white clay is used, and the surface of the ware is covered with
ts'ui'^ glaze through which the white shows in faint patches. This

is what was made by the Chang family in the Sung dynasty, and
is called Chang yao. Compared with the Lung-ch'iian ware in

style and make, it gives the impression of greater delicacy and
refinement." Another writer- describes it as "single-coloured and

pure, like beautiful jade, and ranking with the Kuan yao ; whereas
the Ko yao was pale in colour."

The eleven examples figured and described in Hsiang's Album

are all apparently of this class, and their colour is variously described
as " green, of jade-green tint {ts'ui pi), like a wet, mossy bank

or slender ^^^llow twigs," " green like the green of onion (sprouts) "
{ts'ui jo cKing ts'ung), " green like parrot's feathers," " green hke

the dull green {lii) of a melon," and " soft jade-green like onion
sprouts in autumn." Hsiang's similes leave no doubt as to the
prevailing tint of the ware, which clearly aimed at rivalling the
tint of the prized green jade. As might be expected, few if any
of Chang's celadons are to be found in our collections. Relatively
few in numbers, assuming them to have been the work of one life-

time, and slender in structure, it is improbable that many of them

can have survived the chances of eight or nine hundred years,

and even supposing that any of them have reached Europe, their
identity now could only be a matter of conjecture.

The second class is best known to us in those thick, massive
porcelains with greyish white body and smooth grey green glaze
which have been named in Persian countries martabani and in
Europe celadon. The former name is no doubt derived from the

port of Martaban, on the coast of Pegu, a meeting place of Eastern
and Western traders, from which the Chinese goods were shipped

or transhipped for Europe and the nearer East. The latter name

^ Ts*ui has already been explained as meaning " kingfisher : a bird with bluish
green plumage." That it also connotes the idea of a green colour is shown by the
expression ts'ui yii, which is rendered in Giles's Dictionary, " emerald green jade."

- Author of the Ch'un feng Cang sui pi, quoted in the T'ao shuo, bk. ii., fol, 12.