Page 177 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ting yao gr

carved designs borrowed from ancient bronzes must have been

highly prized.

Of the three kinds of ornament usually associated by Chinese

writers with the Ting ware, the hua hua (carved decoration) and

the yin hua (stamped or moulded decoration) have already been

mentioned. The meaning of the third, hsiu liua,^ is not so clear,

as the phrase can bear two interpretations, viz. painted ornament

or embroidered ornament. In the latter sense it would suggest

a rich decoration like that of brocade without indicating the method
by which it was applied. But in the former it was the usual Chinese

expression for painted ornament, and it is difficult to imagine that

it was intended to indicate anything else in the present context.

On the other hand, no examples of painted Ting ware are known

to exist either in actual fact or in Chinese descriptions. This

anomaly, however, may perhaps be explained in one of two ways.

A creamy white ware of t^u ting type, boldly painted with brown

or black designs, is known to have been made at the not far dis-

tant factories of Tz'u Chou ^ in the Sung dynasty, and it is possible

that either the painted Ting ware has been grouped with the Tz'ii

Chou ware in modern collections, or that Chinese writers mistook

the Tz'u Chou ware for painted Ting ware and added this third

category to the Ting wares by mistake. In any case they regarded

the painted ware as an inferior article.

The high estimation in which fine specimens of white Ting

ware have always been held by Chinese connoisseurs is well illus-

trated by a passage in the Yiin sliih chai pi Van.^ It tells how

Mr. Sun of the Wu-i river estate treasured in his mountain retreat

Ting yao incense-burners, and among them one exquisite specimen

of the Sung period. It was a round vessel with ear handles and

three feet, and the inscription li hsi yai (^^j^) was engraved in

seal characters on the stand. During the Japanese raids in the Chia

Ching period this vessel passed into the hands of one Chin Shang-

pao, who sold it to T'ang, the President of Sacrifices {Vai ch'ang),

of P'i-ling. T'ang, whose residence bore the romantic but chilly

name of Ning-an (Frozen Hut), is the celebrated collector mentioned

in connection with another Ting vessel on p. 95. " Although

* or ^;{g. The word hua (lit. flowers) is used in the general sense of " orna-
^jI The attempts of certain translators to confine it to the literal
sense " flowers "
ment."

has led to ridiculous results.

» See p. 101.

'An early eighteenth-century work, quoted in the T'ao lu, bk. ix., fol. 11.