Page 179 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ting yao 93

" There is purple ^ Ting," says the Ko ku yao lun, " the colour of

which is purple ; there is ink Ting, the colour of which is black,
like lacquer. The body in every case is white, and the value of

these is higher than that of white Ting."

Hsiang, who figured five specimens in his Album, compared

them to the colour of ripe grapes and the skin of the aubergine

fruit or brinjal, one specimen being tzu is'ui (purple blue) ; and

he further states that out of a hundred and more specimens of

Ting ware he had only seen ten of purple and one of black colour.

The solitary specimen of black Ting, w^hich appears in a very

unconvincing illustration in Hsiang's Album,^ is divided into

two zones, one black, the other white, and Hsiang regards it as

inestimably rare and precious. In this appreciation he follows the

Ko ku yao km, but other writers, such as the author of the ChHng

pi ts'ang, take an entirely different view, holding neither the purple

nor the black Ting ware of much account. With us at present

the question is of academic interest only, as no examples of either

kind worthy of notice have been identified in Western collections.

The nearest approach to the description of the purple variety

which I have seen is a small box from a tomb in Shansi, made of

white porcellanous ware with a purplish black glaze on the cover.

It is, however, a crude object, and of no particular merit. As for

the black Ting, the nearest analogue to that which I can quote is

the vases with black or brown black glaze belonging to the Tz'u

Chou class. Some of these (see Plate 30) have zones of black and

white recalling Hsiang's description. It is, perhaps, worth noting

in this connection that the black glaze on these wares was liable

to shade off into lustrous brown, indicating the presence of iron

oxide, and to resemble in this respect the so-called " hare's "
fur

or " partridge " glazes of the celebrated Chien yao tea bowls. ^

This fact may account for a passage in an early writer,^ who says

^1 izii, " purple or dark red brown," is, like most Chinese colour-words, a some-

what elastic term. The dictionary gives instances in which it is applied to " red sandal
wood," " brown sugar," the ruby, the violet, and the peony.

2 Op. cit., fig. 35.
* See p. 131. I have seen a single specimen of a bowl with carved design and
creamy white glaze inside and all the appearances of a Ting ware, but coated on the

exterior with a lustrous coffee brown monochrome. But without any other example
to guide one's judgment, I should hesitate to say that this piece was older than the

Ming dynasty.
* Hsii Tz'u-shu, author of the Ch'a Su, a book on tea, quoted in the 'f*ao shuo,

bk. v., fol. 15 verso.