Page 65 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

The Han Dynasty, 206 b.c. to 220 a.d. 15

spirit world through the medium of fire serves the same purpose
in a more economical fashion. But a fuller note on the grave furni-
ture of the Han and T'ang periods will be given in the nextTchapter.

Little or nothing is at present known of the potteries in which

the Han wares were made, but we may fairly assume that the

manufacture was very general and that local potteries supplied

local demands. An incidental reference in the T'ao lii gives us
one solitary name, Nan Shan, where the potteries of the Emperor

Wu Ti (140-85 B.C.) were situated ; ^ and there is a mention of

potteries in Kiangsi in the place which was afterwards the site

of the celebrated porcelain centre, Ching-te Chen.

The interval between the Han and T'ang periods, from 221

to 618 A.D., is marked by a rapid succession of short-lived dynasties,
an age of conflict and division, in which China was again split up
into warring states. The conditions were not favourable to the
steady development of the ceramic industry, and little is known of

the pottery of this period. From the few references in Chinese
literature, however, we infer that new kinds of pottery appeared

from time to time, and it is certain that the evolution which

culminated in porcelain made sensible advances. This latter fact is
proved by the scientific analysis of some vases obtained by Dr. Laufer
near Hsi-an Fu in Shensi. There is a similar vase in the British
Museum with ovoid body strongly marked vrith wheel-ridges, short

neck and wide cup-shaped mouth, and loop handles on the shoulders.
The ware is in appearance a reddish stoneware, and the glaze which
covers the upper part is translucent greenish brown with signs of

crackle. Dr. Laufer's vases are in the Field Museum at Chicago,

where the body and glaze have been analysed by Mr. Nicholls, the
results showing that the body is composed of a kaolin-like
material (probably a kind of decomposed pegmatite) and is, in

fact, an incipient porcelain, lacking a sufficient grinding of the
material. The glaze is composed of the same material softened

with powdered limestone and coloured with iron oxide. An iron

cooking stove found with these vases has an inscription indicating

by its style a date in the Han dynasty or shortly after it ; and the

nature of the pottery, in spite of its coarse grain and dark colour,
which is probably due in part to the presence of iron in the clay,
seems to show that the manufacture of porcelain was not far distant.

^ Bk. ix., p. 3, quoting the Cheng tzu. t'ung, which in turn quotes the Han Shu,
or Han Histories. Presumably this is the Nan Shan near Lung Chou, in Shensi.