Page 314 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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CHAPTER XV

^^YI-HSING WARE

THE potteries at Yi-hsing Hsien, in the prefecture of Ch'ang-
chou, in Kiangsii, at no great distance from Shanghai, have

long been celebrated for elegantly shaped teapots of un-

glazed stoneware in red and other colours. They have, in fact,

been honoured with a special book, the Yang-hsien ming hu hsi,^

or " Story of the teapots of Yang-hsien " (an old name for

Yi-hsing), written in the seventeenth century ^ ; but though ex-

tracts from this work occur in the T'ao lu and elsewhere, I have

been unable to get access to any copy of the original. This defi-

ciency, however, has been made good by an important translation

given by Brinkley " of a short Japanese work which, he says,
" owes nothing to Japanese research, being merely transcribed

from Chinese annals." The legendary story of the discovery of the

all-important clay deposits in Mount Tao-jung Shu-shan is followed

by a description of the chief varieties of this material which include

light yellow clay for mixing ; another, yellow clay called shih huang

(stone yellow) which turned to cinnabar red in the firing ; a blue

clay which turned to dark brown a clay which produced a " pear
;

skin" colour; a light scarlet clay which produced a pottery of the

colour of pine spikelets ; a light yellow clay making a green ware

and another producing a light red pottery. The "pear skin" clay

mixed with white sand formed a material of a light ink brown colour.

With these materials, and with their conspicuous skill in blend-

ing clays, it may well be imagined that the Yi-hsing potters were

able to make innumerable varieties in their ware. The common-

est shades, however, are deep and light red, chocolate brown, buff,

—drab and black brown ; occasionally the clays are speckled e.g.
—buff ware with blue specks or powdered with minute particles

' By Chou Kao-ch'i. See Bushell, 0. C. A., p. 635.

' F. Brinkley, Japan and China, vol. ix., pp. 355-63.

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