Page 56 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

lo Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

Szechuan, the one made by the ill-fated Lieutenant Brooke, who
was murdered by the Lolos, the other by the Rev. Thomas Tor-

rance, to whom I shall refer again. The evidence of both finds
is mutually corroborative ; it is supported by Han coins found

in the tombs, by inscriptions carved on their doorways, and by
the rare passages of decoration on the objects themselves, which
correspond closely to designs on stone carvings published by
Chavannes. In this way a whole chain of unassailable evidence

has been welded together until, in spite of the remoteness of the

period, we are able to speak with greater confidence about the Han

pottery than about the productions of far more recent times.

The Han pottery is usually of red or slaty grey colour, varying

in hardness from a soft earthenware to something approaching
stoneware, and in texture from that of a brick to the fineness of
delft. These variations are due to the nature of the clay in different
localities and to the degree of heat in which the ware was fired.

No chronological significance can be attached to the variations of

colour, and to place the grey ware earlier than the red is both un-
scientific and patently incorrect. Most of the Szechuan ware is
grey and comparatively soft, while of the specimens sent from

Northern China the majority seem to be of the red clay. Some of

the ware from both parts is unglazed, and in certain cases it has
been washed over with a white clay and even painted with unfired
pigment, chiefly red and black. The bulk of it, however, is glazed,

the typical Han glaze being a translucent greenish yellow, which,

over the red body, produces a colour varying from leaf green to
olive brown, according to the thickness of the glaze and the extent
to which the colour of the underlying body appears through it.

Age and burial have wonderfully affected this green glaze, and in

many cases the surface is encrusted in the process of decay with

iridescent layers of beautiful gold and silver lustre. In other cases
the decay has gone too far, and the glaze has scaled and flaked

off. Another feature which it shares with many of the later glazes

is a minute and almost imperceptible crackle. This feature is
almost universal on the softer Chinese pottery glazes, and has
nothing to do^ with the deliberate and pronounced crackle of

later Chinese porcelain, being purely accidental in its formation.

1 Laufer seems to have mistaken it for the beginning of the regular Chinese crackle

(see op. cit., p. 8). The Han green glaze contains a large proportion of lead oxide and

is coloured \Yith oxide of copper.