Page 200 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

102 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

fourteenth century) productions of the factory are not worthy of

consideration."

If, as this account seems to imply, the Tz'ii Chou factories were

in low water at the end of the Yiian dynasty, like many other

potteries at this time, they managed to retrieve their fortunes,
for they still carry on an unbroken tradition to this day.^ The

ware is in general use among the common folk of Peking and

Northern China, ^ and is still decorated (though coarsely) in the
antique style with free and sketchy painted designs in dark brown
and maroon slip, the body being greyish white, with creamy crackled
glaze. This is, of course, only one kind out of many, but the tradi-
tions have been so closely preserved that from this type alone it

is easy to identify many Tz'ii Chou specimens among the early

wares which have lately come from excavations in China.
The quantity of pottery produced at Tz'u Chou in the last nine

or ten hundred years must have been enormous, but as the post-
Sang wares do not seem to have appealed to Chinese connoisseurs,
little has been heard of it until recent times, and the stray speci-

mens which did find their way to Europe were either unclassified

or grouped with Corean specimens in deference to a mistaken

Japanese opinion.^ Now, however, considerable interest has been
taken in the ware by Western collectors, and a plentiful supply
is forthcoming, so that it is possible to make a comparative study
of the different types, and to appreciate the varied and clever
decorative methods of the Tz'u Chou potters. But the conserva-
tive nature of the wares will always make it extremely difficult for

us to fix the exact period during the many centuries when any

individual piece was made, and the early dates assigned indiscrimin-
ately, though perhaps excusable on account of the archaic character
of the painted decoration, should be accepted with caution.

The plain white Tz'ii Chou wares of the Sung period, which
favourably compared with the Ting porcelain, have been identified
in a few instances only by peculiarities of shape. Indeed, it is
unlikely that we shall have any other means of discriminating
them from the latter ware. But by far the largest group of

^ For incidental reference to Tz'u Chou vases and wine jars in the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries, see p. 128.

- See Bushel], 0. C. A., p. 164.

^ See Brinkley, Catalogue of the Exhibition at the Boston Museum of Arts, 1884
;

also Burlington Magazine, August, 1911, p. 204.