Page 275 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Porcelain and its Beginnings 147

elapsed before a white material of this nature was evolved, but
it was clearly in existence in the beginning of the sixth century.
Possibly it was not porcelain according to the strict European
definition, but there is every reason to suppose that it was a hard
white ware, such as the Chinese would not hesitate to include in
their porcelain category. Such a ware appears on some of the

funeral vases which may safely be referred to the early T'ang period

(see p. 26), and in default of other evidence I think we can say

that porcelain in the Chinese sense already existed at the end of
the Sui dynasty.!

Though this period happens to coincide with the lifetime of

Ho Ch'ou, neither his name nor any other has been associated

with the event by the Chinese, and it is highly probable that porce-
lain only came into being by a process of evolution from pottery

and stoneware, the critical moment arriving with the discovery of

deposits of kaolinic earth. As a mere speculation, I would suggest

that the deposits were those at Han tan, the modern Tz'u Chou,

which supplied material for the Ting Chou potters. ^ It is, at any
rate, significant that the new name, which we are led to suppose
was derived from the tz'u stone, ^ was given to that place in the

Sui dynasty.

Numerous literary references from this time onwards have
already been quoted which are highly suggestive of porcelain. The

" false jade vessels " of T'ao Yii in the early years of the seventh

century ; the eighth-century tea bowls of Yu Chou and Hsing

Chou which were compared respectively to jade and ice, to silver
and snow, the former being green and the latter white. The

twelve cups used for musical chimes by Kuo Tao-yiian; the white
bowls immortalised by the poet Tu " of ware {tz*u) baked at

Ta-yi, light but strong, which gives out a note like jade when

struck."

1 P6re d'Entrecolles (in his letter dated from Ching-te Chen in 1712) makes the
statement that the district of Ching-tfi Chen sent regular supplies of its ware, which he
terms porcelain, to the Emperor from the second year of the reign of Tarn ou te (sic).
Though he gives the date as 422, it is clear that he really refers to the first Emperor,

Wu Te, of the Tang dynasty (618-627 a.d.). It is not clear how he arrived at the

conclusion that the ware in question was porcelain, and as he refers to the Annals of

Fou-liang as his authority, we may assume that the Chinese phrase contained the
inconclusive term tz'u or Cao. He adds that " nothing is said as to the inventor, nor

to what experiments or accident the invention was due."

2 See p. 101.

3 See p. 142.