Page 315 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Yi-hsing Ware 175

of quartz, and frequently two or more clays are used in contrast-
ing tints on the same piece. The body of the ware is sometimes
soft enough to powder under the knife, but as a rule it is a very
hard stoneware, capable of receiving a fine polish on the lapidary's
wheel. The choicest teapots are unglazed, though often a sort
of natural gloss has formed on the surface in the kiln.

But to continue the history of the factories as outlined in
Brinkley's translation, we are told that the first maker of " choice

utensils of pottery for tea-drinking purposes " M'as a priest of the

Chin-sha temple about thirteen miles south-east of Yi-hsing, and

H^that the first really great Yi-hsing potter was Kung Ch'un

who flourished in the Cheng Te period (1506-1521). Though it

Wuwould appear that Kung Ch'un, while attending his master

I-shan at the Chin-sha temple, surreptitiously learnt the secrets of

the priest, his fame completely eclipsed that of his teacher, and he
is usually venerated as the founder of the Yi-hsing potteries. His
pots are described as being " hand made, and in most of them

thumb-marks are faintly visible. Generally their colour is that
of a chestnut, and they have a subdued lustre like oxidised gold.
Their simplicity and accuracy of shape are inimitable ; worthy to

be ascribed to divine revelations."
Supernatural qualities form the only point in conunon between

this description and that of the two teapots figured in Hsiang's

Album, ^ and confidently assigned to Kung Ch'un. One of these

is a drab ware and of hexagonal shape, which appears to have
been formed in a mould ; the other is in the form of a wine ewer
and of vermilion red ; and both are stated to have the wonderful
quality of changing colour when filled with tea. In fact, in the
second illustration the artist has depicted this phenomenon, the
pot being vermilion red above and green below the tea-line. The
price of these two pots in the sixteenth century was no less than

500 taels or ounces of silver. ^ Brinkley's translation gives a con-

siderable list of Yi-hsing potters who made a reputation in the

Ming dynasty, but as the characters are not added it does not always
help us to identify the names, ^ among the potter's marks, and in

^ Op. cit., figs. 45 and 46.

* A tael is about one Mexican dollar and a third, i.e. approximately thirty pence.

^ Four of the most celebrated names, however, are incidentally mentioned in the

^X9.Tao hi (bk. vu„ fol. 11 verso), viz. (1) Shih Ta-pin - (2) Li Chung-fang ^ft 7? :

^^^(3) Hsu Yu-ch'uan ^1t^; (4) Ch'en Chung-mei ; and (5) Ch'in Cbiln-

ch'ing m^m-