Page 299 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

The Yiian Dynasty, 1280-1367 a.d. 165

The Ko ku yao lun enumerates certain pottery forms which,

it asserts, were not in use before the Yiian period. As usual, the
Chinese descriptions are exceedingly difficult to visualise, and in

many cases are open to several interpretations, and are not easy

to reconcile with established facts. However, I quote the passage

as it stands : " Men of old when they drank tea used pHeli^ (? bowls

with curved sides), which were easy to drain and did not retain
the sediment. For drinking wine they used cups (chan) ; they
had not yet tried cups with handles (pa chan ^), and in old times
they had no ch'iian p'an.^ The Ting ware ch'iian p'an which one
sees nowadays are the brush washers (hsi) of olden times. The

men of old used ' decoction vases ' for pouring wine, and did not

use ewers {hu p'ing) or bowls with contracted lip or tea cups

{ch'a chung) or dishes wath rims.^ These were all forms used by

the Mongols. The men of China only began to use them in the
Yiian dynasty. They never appear in old Ting or Kuan wares." ^

1 ^. Bushell (0. C. A., p. 186) renders " wide shallow bowls."
^ ffiS- The handles may be either long stems or handles in the modern sense,
but both these types are found on far more ancient wares, e.g. the tazza or high

footed goblet in Chou pottery, and the small cups with round handles of the T'ang

dynasty. Bushell renders " rounded dishes." They were

P^,^ lit. " exhort dishes."

probably flat-bottomed shallow bowls, used as saucers.

^^ fai p'an, lit. " terraced dishes."

* Ko ku yao lun. bk. vii., fol. 25 verso.