Page 277 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day
P. 277
^
Porcelain and its Beginnings 149
and fishes, under the glaze. Other pottery found on that site
included mottled ware of typical T'ang type, and a creamy white
of the Tz'u Chou type with brown spots.
From considerations of form and the general character of the
ware, I am inclined to regard three specimens in Plates 44 and
45 as belonging to the T'ang period. Fig. 1 of Plate 44 has a
thin ivory white glaze running in gummy drops and clouded with
pinkish buff staining outside and with a reddish discoloration within.
Fig. 2 of the same Plate is remarkable in many ways. It is so thin
as to seem to consist of little else but glaze, and is consequently
almost as translucent as glass. The colour of the glaze is pearly
white powdered with tiny specks, and the crackle is clearly marked.
The base is fiat and discloses a dry white body of fine grain. But
its most conspicuous feature is the arresting beauty of its out-
line, which recalls some choice specimen of Grasco-Roman glass,
and displays a classic feeling frequently observed in T'ang pottery
and in the Corean wares which owe so much to T'ang models.
Fig. 2, Plate 45, shows the celebrated phoenix ewer belonging
to Mr. Eumorfopoulos which has proved so difficult to classify. ^
It is a white porcellanous ware translucent in the thinner parts,
and the glaze is of light greenish grey with a tendency to blue in
places. The form and ornament show strong analogies with speci-
mens of T'ang pottery. The neck, for instance, may be com-
pared with Fig. 2 of Plate 14 ; the phoenix head and the foliate
mouth with Fig. 1 of Plate 9, and the carved ornament on the
body with Fig. 3 of Plate 14.
Among the Sung wares many of the white Ting specimens are
found to be translucent in their thinner parts, and these may be
Afairly regarded as porcelain proper. considerable number of
other white porcelains have come over of late under the description
of Sung wares, and many of them are certainly early enough in
form and style to belong to that period. They are true hard por-
celain, translucent, and of a creamy white colour. Being for the
^ Fragments of white porcelain with carved designs were found in some of the sites
excavated by Sir Aurel Stein in Turfan, and there are fragments similar to the Samarra
finds obtained from ancient sites in the Persian Gulf and now in the British Museum.
But the evidence of these pieces is not conclusive, for the sites were inhabited for many
centuries. That of Samarra, on the other hand, is most important, for the city was
only of a mushroom growth, which began and ended in the ninth century. See also
p. 134.
A* See Cat. B. F. A., 1910, 43.