Page 247 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

^

Chiin Wares and Some Others 127

usually thought to be of the Ming dynasty, but no reason is assigned
for either the name or the date, and both seem to be based on
traders' gossip to which no special importance need be attached.

A fine vase of this kind in the British Museum has been much admired

by Chinese connoisseurs, and they have, as a rule, pronounced it to
be Sung. The important specimen (Plate 39) in the FitzWilliam
INIuseum, Cambridge, was obtained from a tomb near Nanking,^ a
circumstance which is in favour of an early origin. In other respects
this class of ware seems to answer to the aubergine and " sky
blue " Chiin types described by Chinese writers, and I regard it as
one of the Sung varieties of Chiin Chou ware, with " yellow, sandy

earthenware "' body of which the Po wu yao Ian makes mention.
That it continued to be made after the Sung period is practi-

cally certain, and there are specimens which one would unhesitatingly
regard as Ming or Yiian from their form. But, on the other hand,

the prevailing shapes are of the Sung kind, and we have very little

to guide us in dealing with the various Chiin types except the form
and the quality of the ware. The " soft Chiin " was very closely
imitated at Yi-hsing on a yellowish body which resembles the

original in colour, but is generally harder, with a thick unctuous
glaze of somewhat crystalline texture and a turquoise lavender
colour, with rather thin and feeble patches of dull crimson, which
lack the spontaneous appearance of the originals. These Yi-hsing

copies are often marked with an incised numeral like the Canton

Chiin.

With regard to the duration of the Chiin Chou factories, the
standard Chinese works on ceramics are curiously silent. They
take no account of the ware after the Sung period, and leave us
to infer that it either ceased to be made or ceased to be worthy
of mention after that time. In two places only have I found any
hint of its survival in later times. One is an incidental mention
of Sung, Yiian, and Ming Chiin wares in a modern work,^ and the
other is in the pottery (not the porcelain) section in the great K'ang
Hsi Encyclopaedia.^ The latter passage is taken from the adminis-
trative records of the Ming dynasty, and contains two references

1 It -was deposited in the FitzWilliam Museum by INIr. ^Y. H. Caulfield in 1896.

* See p. 110.

» The Li t'a k'an k'ao ku ou pien, of which the British Museum possesses a copy

dated 1877.

* The Ch'in ting ku chin Cu shu chi ch'ing, fol. 10 of the subsection dealing with
fao kung (the pottery industry), entitled T'ao kung pu hui k'ao.