Plate 48.—Kuangtung Ware.Fig. 1.—Dish in form of a lotus leaf, mottled blue and brown glaze. About 1600. Diameter 81/4inches.British Museum.Fig. 2.—Vase with lotus scroll in relief, opaque, closely crackled glaze of pale lavender grey warming into purple. (?) Fourteenth century. Height 77/8inches.Peters Collection.Fig. 3.—Figure of Pu–tai Ho–shang, red biscuit, the draperies glazed celadon green. Eighteenth century. Height 81/4inches.British Museum.
Fig. 1.—Dish in form of a lotus leaf, mottled blue and brown glaze. About 1600. Diameter 81/4inches.British Museum.Fig. 2.—Vase with lotus scroll in relief, opaque, closely crackled glaze of pale lavender grey warming into purple. (?) Fourteenth century. Height 77/8inches.Peters Collection.Fig. 3.—Figure of Pu–tai Ho–shang, red biscuit, the draperies glazed celadon green. Eighteenth century. Height 81/4inches.British Museum.
Fig. 1.—Dish in form of a lotus leaf, mottled blue and brown glaze. About 1600. Diameter 81/4inches.British Museum.Fig. 2.—Vase with lotus scroll in relief, opaque, closely crackled glaze of pale lavender grey warming into purple. (?) Fourteenth century. Height 77/8inches.Peters Collection.Fig. 3.—Figure of Pu–tai Ho–shang, red biscuit, the draperies glazed celadon green. Eighteenth century. Height 81/4inches.British Museum.
Plate 49.—Covered Jar of Buff Stoneware.With cloudy green glaze and touches of dark blue, yellow, brown and white; archaic dragons, bats and storks in low relief; border of sea waves. Probably Kuangtung ware, seventeenth century. Height 33 inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 49.—Covered Jar of Buff Stoneware.With cloudy green glaze and touches of dark blue, yellow, brown and white; archaic dragons, bats and storks in low relief; border of sea waves. Probably Kuangtung ware, seventeenth century. Height 33 inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
With cloudy green glaze and touches of dark blue, yellow, brown and white; archaic dragons, bats and storks in low relief; border of sea waves. Probably Kuangtung ware, seventeenth century. Height 33 inches.
Eumorfopoulos Collection.
YI–HSINGChinese charactersWARE
THE potteries at Yi–hsing Hsien, in the prefecture of Ch´ang–chou, in Kiangsu, at no great distance from Shanghai, have long been celebrated for elegantly shaped teapots of unglazed stoneware in red and other colours. They have, in fact, been honoured with a special book, theYang–hsien ming hu hsi,[396]or "Story of the teapots of Yang–hsien" (an old name for Yi–hsing), written in the seventeenth century[397]; but though extracts from this work occur in theT´ao luand elsewhere, I have been unable to get access to any copy of the original. This deficiency, however, has been made good by an important translation given by Brinkley[398]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 calledshih 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 blending clays, it may well be imagined that the Yi–hsing potters were able to make innumerable varieties in their ware. The commonest 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 particlesof quartz, and frequently two or more clays are used in contrasting 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" was a priest of the Chin–sha temple about thirteen miles south–east of Yi–hsing, and that the first really great Yi–hsing potter was Kung Ch´unChinese characterswho flourished in the Chêng Tê period (1506–1521). Though it would appear that Kung Ch´un, while attending his master Wu 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 common between this description and that of the two teapots figured in Hsiang's Album,[399]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.[400]Brinkley's translation gives a considerable 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,[401]among the potter's marks, and inmost cases the characteristics assigned to them are entirely vague. We learn, for instance, that one man's "forte was beauty of decoration," and that three others were "renowned for the excellence of their pottery." On the other hand, it is important to read that Tung Han in the Wan Li period (1573–1619) was "the first potter who ornamented the surface of the Yi–hsing ware with elaborate designs in relief," and that many of the pieces designed by Ch´ên Chung–mei,[402]who had formerly been a porcelain maker, "such as perfume boxes, flower vases, paper weights, and so forth, show singularly fine moulding and chiselling. His vases were shaped in the form of flowers, leaves, and fruits, and were decorated with insects. His dragons sporting among storm–clouds, with outstretched claws and straining eyes; his statuettes of the goddess Kuanyin, her features at once majestic and benevolent—these are indeed wonderful productions, instinct with life." This passage shows, at any rate, that in the Ming period the Yi–hsing potters did not confine their attention to tea wares. Perhaps the most celebrated Yi–hsing potter was Shih Ta–pin, who followed in the footsteps of the great Kung Ch´un, and eventually surpassed him.
Brinkley's translation gives us very precise views of what the true form of the teapot should be. It should be small, so that the bouquet of the tea be not dispersed, and every guest should have a pot to himself. It should be shallow, with a cover which is convex inside; and it is very important that the spout should be straight. Crooked spouts were very liable to become obstructed by the tea leaves. "One drinks tea for pleasure, and one may justly feel irritated if the beverage declines to come out of the pot." The true form of teapot, we are told, began with Kung Ch´un, from which one infers that the tea bowls of the T´ang and Sung usage were in vogue up to his time. But the correct shape once established, the Yi–hsing potters soon began to take liberties with it, and to twist it into all manner of fanciful forms, such as fruits (persimmon, pomegranate, finger citron), the leaf or the seed–pod of the lotus, creature forms such as fish leaping from waves, a phœnix, and innumerable other quaint shapes, always skilfully modelled and often of high artistic merit.
Plate 50.—Yi–hsing Stoneware, sometimes calledBuccaro.Figs. 1–4.—Teapots in the Dresden Collection, late seventeenth century. (1) Buff with dark patches. Height 5 inches. (2) Red ware with pierced outer casing. Diameter 51/2inches. (3) Black with gilt vine sprays. Height 41/2inches. (4) Red ware moulded with lion design. Height 43/4inches. Fig. 5.—Peach–shaped water vessel, red ware. Diameter 41/8inches.Dresden Collection.Fig 6.—Red teapot, moulded design of trees, etc. Inscription containing the name of Ch´ien Lung. Diameter 41/2inches.Hippisley Collection.
Plate 50.—Yi–hsing Stoneware, sometimes calledBuccaro.Figs. 1–4.—Teapots in the Dresden Collection, late seventeenth century. (1) Buff with dark patches. Height 5 inches. (2) Red ware with pierced outer casing. Diameter 51/2inches. (3) Black with gilt vine sprays. Height 41/2inches. (4) Red ware moulded with lion design. Height 43/4inches. Fig. 5.—Peach–shaped water vessel, red ware. Diameter 41/8inches.Dresden Collection.Fig 6.—Red teapot, moulded design of trees, etc. Inscription containing the name of Ch´ien Lung. Diameter 41/2inches.Hippisley Collection.
Figs. 1–4.—Teapots in the Dresden Collection, late seventeenth century. (1) Buff with dark patches. Height 5 inches. (2) Red ware with pierced outer casing. Diameter 51/2inches. (3) Black with gilt vine sprays. Height 41/2inches. (4) Red ware moulded with lion design. Height 43/4inches. Fig. 5.—Peach–shaped water vessel, red ware. Diameter 41/8inches.Dresden Collection.Fig 6.—Red teapot, moulded design of trees, etc. Inscription containing the name of Ch´ien Lung. Diameter 41/2inches.Hippisley Collection.
The ware, as already stated, is chiefly red, dark and light, chocolate brown, buff, and drab, and it is usually without glaze. The decoration consists of: (1) Engraved designs, cut in the ware while it was still soft. These are usually inscriptions of a poetic nature, great importance being attached to the calligraphy. Indeed, we are told that "some of the potters of Yi–hsing owed their reputation chiefly to their skill in carving inscriptions. Such a man was Chan–chien, whose style of writing has been much imitated by modern artists. Another was Ta–hsin, who was employed by Shih Ta–pin to write inscriptions, and who was such a master of penmanship that his inscriptions have been carefully transcribed and are used by connoisseurs as a standard of excellence." (2) Low reliefs, either formed in the teapot mould or separately stamped out and stuck on. Occasionally gilding is found on these, but it is probably a European addition. (3) Stamped diapers of key fret, and other familiar patterns, usually forming the background for relief ornament or borders. (4) Openwork designs applied in panels over an inner lining which was usually washed with a light–tinted clay. The pierced work is commonly of floral design, often the prunus, bamboo and pine pattern, and on dishes and saucers it has no backing but is leftà jour. All these methods of ornament are found on the examples which reached Europe at the end of the seventeenth century, and they supplied designs for the European potters of that period. (5) A later type of ornament consists of opaque coloured enamels in painted designs or as ground–colours completely hiding the surface of the ware. The colours are always of thefamille rosevariety, including opaque pink,[403]and I do not know of any example which suggests an earlier date than Ch´ien Lung (1736–1795). Most, indeed, appear to be nineteenth century.
In addition to these, certain less familiar styles of ornament are found on the smaller objects, such as the heads of opium pipes, which are beautifully made and tastefully decorated. The red ware is sometimes coated with a transparent glaze of yellowish tint, giving a surface of warm reddish brown, exactly similar tothe eighteenth century Astbury ware of Staffordshire; or, again, it is polished on the lapidary's wheel like the Böttger ware of Dresden. Inlaid designs in fine white clay and marbling are further varieties; and occasionally coloured glazes of great beauty occur. But these will be discussed presently.
There is no limit to the variety of articles made by the Yi–hsing potters, but they chiefly excelled in small and dainty articles for the writing–table, the toilet, and the tea–table, and personal ornaments. Their tea wares have always been highly prized in Japan, where they have been cleverly copied in Banko ware and by the Kioto potters. Similarly, when tea–drinking became an institution in Europe in the last half of the seventeenth century, and the East India companies set themselves to supply the necessary apparatus from China, the Yi–hsing red teapots became fashionable, and were immediately imitated by enterprising potters. The Dutch and English seem to have been the first to succeed in this new departure, and we read that Ary de Milde and W. van Eenhorn, of Delft, applied for a monopoly of the manufacture in Holland in 1679, while John Dwight, of Fulham, included the "Opacous, redd and Dark coloured Porcellane or China" in the patent taken out in London five years later. The brothers Elers, of Dutch extraction, started the industry in Staffordshire about 1693, and made red stoneware teapots scarcely distinguishable from the Chinese, and which sold for a guinea a piece.
The Yi–hsing wares in the celebrated Chinese ceramic collection formed by Augustus the Strong at Dresden supplied designs for the fine red stoneware made in the first years of the eighteenth century by Böttger, who also discovered the secret of true porcelain in Europe and founded the famous Meissen porcelain factory.
From the earliest days of their importation the Yi–hsing wares have been known in Europe, especially in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, by the Portuguese name ofbuccaro. The truebuccarois a scented pottery, first imported from Central and South America, where it was made by the Indian population and afterwards manufactured in Portugal and Spain; and Count Lorenzo Magalotti, who wrote in 1695, protested against the application of the name "to certain unglazed pieces of Oriental origin," asserting that "true Buccaro never came from China or Japan, and that they must not be looked for out of the pottery sent over from Central Americaor the Portuguese imitations."[404]But the protests of purists were unavailing, andbuccaroseems to have become a regular term for unglazed pottery, even the archaic black ware from the Etruscan tombs receiving the name ofbuchero nero.
Two Vases with glaze imitating that of the Chün Chou wares: in the Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 1.—Vase of Fat–shan (Kuangtung) Chün ware. Late Ming. Height 93/4inches.Fig. 2.—Bottle–shaped Vase, the base suggesting a lotus flower and the mouth a lotus seed–pod, with a ring of movable seeds on the rim. Thick and almost crystalline glaze of lavender blue colour with a patch of crimson. Yi–hsing Chün ware of the seventeenth century. Height 93/4inches.
Fig. 1.—Vase of Fat–shan (Kuangtung) Chün ware. Late Ming. Height 93/4inches.
Fig. 2.—Bottle–shaped Vase, the base suggesting a lotus flower and the mouth a lotus seed–pod, with a ring of movable seeds on the rim. Thick and almost crystalline glaze of lavender blue colour with a patch of crimson. Yi–hsing Chün ware of the seventeenth century. Height 93/4inches.
Another important group of Yi–hsing wares presents an entirely different aspect, and indeed it is little understood in Europe, though it is probably bought by unwary collectors for the Sung types which it purports to imitate. This is the Yi–hsing Chün, to which allusion has already been made in discussing the imitation Chün wares. The traditions of this manufacture go back to the Ming dynasty, when a potter named OuChinese charactergained a great reputation for his glazes, which "copied the Ko ware in crackle and the Kuan and Chün wares in colour."[405]This is, no doubt, the manufacture mentioned in thePo wu yao lanin the passage dealing with Chün yao: "At the present time (i.e. 1621–1627), among the recent manufactures this kind of ware is all made with the sandy clay (sha t´u) of Yi–hsing as body; the glaze is rather like the original, and in some cases beautiful, but it does not wear well."
Though the original glazed wares of Ou are probably rarer to–day than their Chün Chou prototypes, there is no reason to suppose that Ou´s successors have not kept up the continuity of the manufacture. It is certainly very much alive to–day, and an early eighteenth century reference to "the applied glaze of Yi–hsing"[406]seems to imply its existence at that time. I havebefore me as I write a tripod incense burner of archaic form, the body a light buff stoneware and the glaze a deep lavender, breaking into blue. It is a thick and rather opaque glaze, sufficiently flowing to have left the upper edges almost bare and formed thickly on the flatter and lower levels; the colour is broken by streaks and clouding, which mark the downward flow of the glaze; the surface has a barely perceptible crackle, which will no doubt become more marked with age, and a subdued lustre between the brilliancy of the old opalescent Chün types and the viscous, silken sheen of the Canton glazes[407]which also imitate them. The colour and glaze are distinctly attractive, and have much in common with the old Chün glazes, and though this is a frankly modern piece, it shows the potentialities of the ware. Similar specimens made, say, a hundred or two hundred years ago, and proportionately aged by time and usage, might well cause trouble to the collector.
There are, besides, quantities of common glazed pottery made at Yi–hsing in the present day, and probably for a considerable time back, which has no mission to imitate the antique. Many of the modern ginger pots are said to come from this locality, and their glazes—some with clear colours (yellow, green, or purple), others opaque and clouded, often covering moulded ornament in low relief—may help us to identify kindred types of glaze on pieces which are more ornamental and perhaps much older. But pottery, as distinct from porcelain and the finer stonewares, has never commanded much interest in China, and it has never been systematically collected and studied. The result is that it is extremely difficult to place the various types which appear from time to time except in large and ill–defined groups. A series of typical pieces of modern Yi–hsing pottery, for instance, would no doubt be of the greatest value in identifying the rather older wares made in the same place under similar traditions, but no one in Europe[408]has thought it worth their while to form one.
I have noticed that a certain type of glazed pottery is distinguished by a concave base which serves instead of the usual hollowed–outfoot and foot rim, and by a glaze which stops a little short of the base in an even, regular line which is quite distinct from the wavy glaze line of the Yuan and earlier wares. A jar of this type in the British Museum has a typical Yi–hsing glaze, and though this is not perhaps sufficient ground for generalising, I would suggest that this peculiar finish is an indication of Yi–hsing manufacture.
MISCELLANEOUS POTTERIES
IN addition to the factories which have received individual notice, there are numerous others which are only names to us; and, on the other hand, there is a host of nameless wares which have reached Europe at various times and through divers channels, and are now awaiting classification with very little chance of being definitely located. A consideration, however, suggested by theChinese Commercial Guide[409]may help towards the grouping of these miscellaneous wares. We are told that the charges for freight forbid the wares to be carried far in the ordinary way of internal trade, and that manufactures of pottery are numerous, supplying the local needs. Now the number of ports open to foreign trade in China is limited, and in the past the sea trade was of far smaller volume, and was concentrated in a few of the southern coast towns. Consequently, in dealing with pottery which we may assume to have been brought by the export trade to Europe, it will be necessary for general purposes to take account only of the factories in the neighbourhood of the seaports in question. These will be found to be almost entirely in the southern half of China.
Thus, starting from the south and following the coast line, we come first to the potteries which supplied Pak–hoi and Canton, and we may assume that Hongkong and Kowloon would be supplied from the neighbourhood of Canton. These have already been discussed, and we can pass on to Swatow, which would draw supplies from the Ch´ao–chou Fu potteries. This neighbourhood furnished an exhibit to the Paris Exhibition of 1878, consisting of "tea jars, tobacco jars, braziers and pots, lamps, tiles, flower pots, fruit jars, spoons, vases of various sorts, figures, dishes, cups and saucers, and spittoons."
Wine Jar with Cover and Stand. Fine stoneware with ornament in relief glazed green and yellow in a deep violet blue ground. Four–clawed dragons ascending and descending among cloud–scrolls in pursuit of flaming pearls; band of sea–waves below and formal borders including aju–ipattern on the shoulder. Cover with foliate edges and jewel pattern, surmounted by a seated figure of Shou Lao, God of Longevity. About 1500A. D.
Wine Jar with Cover and Stand. Fine stoneware with ornament in relief glazed green and yellow in a deep violet blue ground. Four–clawed dragons ascending and descending among cloud–scrolls in pursuit of flaming pearls; band of sea–waves below and formal borders including aju–ipattern on the shoulder. Cover with foliate edges and jewel pattern, surmounted by a seated figure of Shou Lao, God of Longevity. About 1500A. D.
Height 221/2inches.Grandidier Collection, Louvre.
At the same exhibition, Amoy, to which we come next, was represented by "dishes, rice bowls, wine cups, saucers and spoons, preserve jars, wine bottles, etc., in common porcelain," besides tiles of various kinds, which implies the manufacture of pottery as well. These wares, we are informed in the catalogue, are largely exported to Saigon, Siam, Manilla, etc.; a statement confirmed by theChinese Commercial Guide,[410]which adds India, the Archipelago, and the southern provinces. This is interesting in view of the quantities of coarse china, blue and white[411]and coloured, which is brought from these parts by collectors who take its crude appearance as evidence of age. The factories are located at Pa–kwoh, a village near Shih–ma, which lies between Amoy and Chang–chou Fu. Tung–an Hsien in the same neighbourhood is also named as a pottery centre.
There are several important factories within easy reach of Shanghai. Those at Yi–hsing have been discussed at some length, but there is another large centre of the industry on the east side of the Lake T´ai–hu opposite to Yi–hsing. This is Su ChouChinese character, which, according to the catalogue of the Paris Exhibition, was still celebrated for its pottery in 1878. But the reputation of Su Chou does not rest on its modern achievements. Its name occurs frequently in the pottery section of the great encyclopædia (compiled by order of the Emperor K´ang Hsi) as one of the prominent pottery centres in the Ming dynasty. Tiles for the palaces and temples of Nanking were made there, and vases and wine vessels for the Imperial Court. The nature of these last can be guessed from a hint given in one passage of the encyclopædia[412]: "At Su Chou iron rust (hsiu) and other materials are used for the yellow wares. For the vessels with dragon and phœnix destined for Imperial use, a resinous substance[413]and cobalt blue[414]are used."
In the Hsüan Tê period (1426–1435), Su Chou was noted forthe manufacture of artistic pots for holding fighting crickets. In reference to these we are informed in theT´ao shuo(see Bushell, op. cit., p. 140) that "those fabricated at Su Chou by the two makers named LuChinese characterand TsouChinese characterwere beautifully moulded, and artistically carved and engraved, and the pots made by the Elder and the Younger HsiuChinese character, two daughters of Tsou, were the finest of all. At this time fighting crickets was a favourite pastime, and hundreds and thousands of cash were staked upon the event, so that they did not grudge spending large sums upon the pots, which were decorated in this elaborate way, and consequently far surpassed the ordinary porcelain of the period."
The large and important potteries at Po–shan HsienChinese characterin the Ch´ing–chou Fu, in Shantung, were represented only by a small exhibit at the Paris Exhibition of 1878, consisting of "a bottle of glazed pottery, three tea jars in red ware, ten specimens of glazed pottery, a brazier in terra cotta, and seven crucibles." Laufer tells us that these potteries date back to Sung times, and have preserved the old traditions of manufacture. The district is also noted for its glass, enamels and glazing materials, but it is situated inland, and not conveniently near any of the treaty ports.
In the early days of the European trading companies, pottery, as distinct from porcelain, does not seem to have received much attention from the merchants, and we may fairly assume that most of the earthenwares which reached Europe before the last century hailed from the neighbourhood of Canton or from Yi–hsing and the Shanghai district. But long before the first European vessels reached the coasts of China, Arab and Chinese merchantmen had carried cargoes of pottery and coarse porcelain to the Philippines, the East Indian Archipelago, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, Ceylon, and India. The Arabs had a trading station in Canton in the eighth century, and Chinese junks sailed from Canton and the Fukien ports in the Sung, Yüan, and Ming dynasties. A Chinese account of the sea trade in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries may be read in the work of Chao Ju–kua,[415]and it will be found from this book and from Marco Polo's accounts that Ch´üan–chou Fu on the Fukien coast was a busy centre of foreign trade in the Sung and Yüan periods. Hirth[416]has traced the probable route by whichthe Lung–ch´üan celadons reached this port for shipment, and doubtless the other wares, including coarse white porcelain, stonewares and pottery, which are found in the Philippines and Borneo (to name only two of many localities) were largely supplied from the Fukien potteries. Many of these wares are of undoubted antiquity, and some of the types are unknown in China to–day. They may have been made solely for export, but in any case their disappearance in China is quite intelligible. For even in the eighth century the merchants were forbidden[417]to export "precious and rare articles," and most of these trade goods are of coarse make and unlikely to be preserved by the Chinese at home.
On the other hand, the natives of the Philippines and the Dyaks of Borneo have preserved these old potteries with scrupulous care. The various types of jars have been christened with special names[418]alluding to their form or decoration; they have been credited with supernatural powers; and numerous legends have grown endowing them with life and movement, power of speech, and influences malevolent or benign.
A good collection of these pots would be of considerable interest, but the value attached to them by their native owners is out of all proportion to their intrinsic worth, and makes them difficult to procure. An important series, however, of the Philippine jars has been formed by the Field Museum at Chicago, and they are described with full illustration in one of the excellent publications of that institution.[419]Among other things we are told that "every wild tribe encountered by the writer in the interior of Luzon, Palawan, and Mindanao possesses these jars, which enter intimately into the life of the people. Among many the price paid by the bridegroom for his bride is wholly or in part in jars. When a Tinguian youth is to take his bride, he goes to her house at night, carrying with him a Chinese jar which he presents to his father–in–law. The liquor served at ceremonies and festivals is sometimes contained in these jars, while small porcelain dishes contain the food offered to the spirits."[420]
A general similarity in form is noticeable in the Philippinejars, an ovoid body more or less elongated being common to all, while the neck varies a little in its height and width. A series of loop handles or pierced masks on the shoulder, to hold a cord for suspension, is a constant feature. The older types, which are said to date back to a period ranging from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, are frequently decorated with one or two large dragons coiling round the sides, and either modelled in low relief or incised in the body. Others are quite plain, and the glazes include black, brown, dark green, and a brownish yellow of varying depth. A later group, not older than the end of the Ming dynasty, is without ornament, but coated with single–colour or variegated glazes of the Canton and Yi–hsing types—e.g. speckled blue with green flecks, green with blue streaks and lines, blue and green mottled and crackled, light bluish green—the glaze often ending short of the base in an even line, which is, perhaps, characteristic of Yi–hsing.
The British Museum has a small series from Borneo, which includes, among the older types of pottery, a jar with black–brown glaze and bands of cloud design and stiff leaves deeply incised, and an ovoid jar with many loop handles on the shoulders, two dragons in relief, and a ground of incised wave pattern all covered with a yellowish brown glaze which ends in a regularly waved line some way short of the–base. Of later make is a jar with translucent purplish brown glaze, and four circular panels with figure ornament in low relief glazed green, a type described by the Japanese as "Old Kochi."[421]There are, besides, a jar with roughly painted blue dragon designs under a crackled white glaze, the ware being a coarse porcellanous stoneware; another with enamel colours in addition to the underglaze blue including the rose pink which is not older than the eighteenth century; and another type with rough stoneware or earthen body covered with a crackled, greyish white enamel of putty–like surface on which enamel colours are coarsely painted. The typical jar which the island natives so highly prize is of the ovoid form with a number of loop handles on theshoulder and dragons in relief.[422]An unusually ornate example is shown on Plate 49. It has a cloudy green crackled glaze with dragons of both the ordinary and the archaic kind, besides storks and a bat in low relief, and there are touches of dark blue and yellow, white and brown in the glaze. It is probably of Canton make and not older than the seventeenth century. In modern times jars are made in Borneo itself by the Chinese in the coast towns.
Vase with chrysanthemum handles: buff stoneware with chrysanthemum design outlined in low relief and coloured with turquoise, green and pale yellow glazes in a dark purple ground. About 1500A. D.
Vase with chrysanthemum handles: buff stoneware with chrysanthemum design outlined in low relief and coloured with turquoise, green and pale yellow glazes in a dark purple ground. About 1500A. D.
Height 191/2inches.Eumorfopoulos Collection.
A certain amount of Chinese pottery found its way, like the celadon porcelains in early times, by the caravan routes into Turkestan, India, Persia, and Western Asia. Such wares would be more naturally drawn from the potteries in Honan, Chihli, and the north–western provinces, and it is not surprising that the fragment found by Sir Aurel Stein in the buried cities of Turkestan should have included the brown painted wares of Tz´ŭ Chou.
But the greatest difficulties in classification are presented by the miscellaneous pottery which collectors have picked up from time to time in China, or antique dealers have sent over to supply the demand created by the increasing interest taken in Chinese pottery by Western amateurs. These come, as a rule, without any hint as to their place of origin, and in most cases it is quite impossible to locate them. There are, however, certain well–defined groups which come together naturally.
One of these is represented by the Tradescant jar in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It was exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910, and described in the catalogue[423]as "Jar with globular body, short neck, and wide mouth; five loop handles; stoneware covered with a bright green glaze; the ornament consists of floral scrolls in yellow with touches of brown and is in low relief; round the base a formal design. Height, 12 inches." A similar jar is shown on Plate 56, and in the Goff collection in the Brighton Museum is another of the same make, but with the design incised with a point instead of applied in relief. The Tradescant Collection was given to Elias Ashmole in 1659 by John Tradescant. It was formed by the father of the donor, who died in 1627, so thatat the lowest computation the antiquity of these wares is fixed in the late Ming period. Another group is represented by Plate 58, Fig. 2. Its characteristics are a comparatively thin buff earthenware body, soft enough to powder under the knife, and a sparing use of brownish yellow, bright turquoise, green[424]and aubergine glazes of the usual crackled type applied direct to the body. The specimens are generally vases or incense burners of curious and archaic forms, with ornament moulded in low relief, the whole bearing the unmistakable signs of a ware which has been pressed in a mould. The inside and bottom of the incense burners are usually unglazed. The colours, as a rule, are pleasing and soft, and it is the common practice to label them indiscriminately Ming. As nothing definite is known of their place of origin, this chronology can only be based on their archaistic appearance, or on the fact that they have the usual "on biscuit" glazes, which seems to be the accepted signal for a Ming attribution. Needless to say, the use of this method of colouring survived the demise of the last Ming emperor, and it is improbable that wares which must be comparatively common in China (judging from the handsome way in which the quite recently created demand for them has been answered) should have a minimum antiquity of two hundred and seventy years.
The fact is that dating of these glazed potteries is as difficult as that of the cognate glazed tiles, and it is as unreasonable to exclude a Ch´ing origin as it would be to exclude a Ming. The balance of probabilities, at any rate, is in favour of the bulk of them being no older than the eighteenth century.
Vase with lotus handles: buff stoneware with lotus design modelled in low relief and coloured with aubergine, green and pale yellow glazes in a deep turquoise ground. About 1500A. D.
Vase with lotus handles: buff stoneware with lotus design modelled in low relief and coloured with aubergine, green and pale yellow glazes in a deep turquoise ground. About 1500A. D.
Height 18 inches.Grandidier Collection, Louvre.
A third group is also consistently labelled Ming, but with better reason, though even here a little more elasticity in the dating is advisable. It has an exact parallel in porcelains of undoubted Ming origin, viz. those represented by Plate 61, etc., which usually take the form of jars and vases with designs outlined in fillets of clay, or channelled or even piercedà jour. The spaces between the outlines are filled with coloured glazes which are fired, in the case of porcelain, in the cooler parts of the biscuit kiln. These are the glazesde demi–grand feu, according to the French definition, and theyconsist of turquoise and aubergine purple or violet and green (the three colours orsan ts´ai, all minutely crackled), supplemented by a white formed by slip and a thin brownish yellow. Occasionally the purple is so deep as to appear almost black; and the details of the designs are often etched in the paste with a fine point. Precisely similar wares are found with an earthenware body; and they are, no doubt, contemporary with the analogous porcelains, though how long the traditions of this type of ware continued has never been precisely determined. The porcelain on which washes of turquoise and aubergine glaze are combined is a development of this type, and this has certainly survived to comparatively modern times. Reticulated ornament was used on the three–colour pottery vases no less than on the porcelain (Plate 55); and besides the covered wine jars and vases there are figures and grotto pieces of similar style both in pottery and porcelain, many of which must date from Ming times.
Plate 53 illustrates a beautiful vase in the Eumorfopoulos Collection which belongs to a cognate group. It has a buff stoneware body, the ornament is outlined in relief, and the glazes which fill the outlines are very similar to those of our main group, though some of the colours are more transparent and glassy and wanting in the solidity of the latter. The chrysanthemum handles are a frequent feature of the vases of this class, of which a notable instance is in the Salting Collection. Plate 54 illustrates another vase of similar kind, but with lotus handles, lotus designs, and a fine turquoise ground. Of the same type, but less rare, are certain wide–mouthed jars, bowls, and flower pots with bold floral designs, lotuses, etc., outlined in fillets of clay and filled with the same kinds of glaze, the background now turquoise and now aubergine (Plate 58, Fig. 1). The base is usually washed over with a thin purplish brown. These several types were copied in the Japanese Kishiu pottery in the nineteenth century, and though the copies are rarely difficult to distinguish by the eye alone the Japanese glazes (particularly the aubergine) will be found on handling to have a peculiar moist and rather sticky surface. Though no doubt of Ming origin, it is extremely probable that the manufacture of the Chinese bowls and flower pots of this class continued into the last dynasty.
Fig. 2 of Plate 56 exemplifies another kind of pottery with fine white body like pipeclay, and usually with sharply moulded designsin antique bronze style and in the bronze forms of beakers and four–legged incense burners. The glaze is usually leaf green, but it often breaks out into a frothy grey scum, such as is seen on some of the Canton and Yi–hsing glazed pottery. It is a common practice to label these wares as T´ang, but I am inclined to place them in a much more recent period (seventeenth or eighteenth century), and to locate them among the miscellaneous Kuangtung wares, pending further information on the subject.
There are other specimens with a somewhat similar white and relatively soft body material, not glazed but stained with a brownish black dressing of clay, and somewhat recalling bronze. These are usually vases of elegant, well–moulded form, such as Plate 56, Fig. 3, and they are often markedNan hsiang t´ang.[425]They are, no doubt, of relatively modern make.
Though it would be easy to suggest many possible places of origin for these wares, such speculation can be of no real value without far more definite evidence than we possess at present. Still, it may serve some useful purpose in the future, if not at once, if we add one or two more records, however meagre, to the existing lists of Chinese potteries. The section of theT´u shu, which is devoted toT´ao kung(the pottery industry), mentions the following factories as of some importance in the Ming dynasty. In the province of Honan, in addition to the well–known potteries of Chün Chou and Ju Chou, we read that there was a factory in the Ju–ning Fu at the village of Ts´aiChinese character, which was intermittently active in the first half of the fifteenth century.[426]
From another passage we learn that in the valleys of Ching[427]Chinese characterand the hills of Shu (or Szech´uan) there are black and yellow clays suitable for pottery; that the potters had their kilns in holes in the mountains; and that they used the yellow clay for the body of the ware and overlaid it with the black, making jars, drug pots, cauldrons, pots, dishes, bowls, sacrificial vessels, and the like. They also made one kind of ware which resembled that of Chün Chou.
Specimens of modern pottery in the Field Museum, Chicago, include ornamental wares such as pomegranate–shaped water pots, etc., covered with an oily green glaze recalling some of the Sungtypes. The body is apparently dark coloured, and shows brown at the edges where the glaze is thin. This ware is made at Ch´êng–tu in Szech´uan.
The geographical annals of the province of Shensi are quoted[428]with reference to potteries in the T´ung–chou Fu as follows: "The inhabitants of Lei–hsiang and Pai–shui[429]are good potters, and the porcelains (tz´ŭ ch´i) which they make are of surpassingly clever workmanship. These are what are commonly calledlei kung ch´i(vessels of the Lord of Thunder). Some say that the potteries of Hsiang only began to be active when the original wares had ceased to be made. The village of Lei–hsiang is east of Shên Hsien, and it is the place of the temple of the Hsiang family. The inhabitants of the place sometimes dig up castaway Hsiang wares. Their shape and style are archaic; the colour of the ware is green (lü), deep and dark, but brilliant. One kind has slight ornament in raised clay, but if the hand is passed over it, the surface feels smooth and without perceptible relief or indentation.[430]When compared with the Hsüan,[431]Ko and other wares, it may be said to surpass them." The description in the last part seems to apply to the older wares which preceded those made in the district at the time of writing.
The modern potteries at Yo Chou in Shensi are represented in the Field Museum, Chicago, by a black–painted ware in Tz´ŭ Chou style, by a greyish white ware with sketchy blue designs, and by a black slag–like earthenware which is extremely light to handle. It is also suggested that a well known type of pottery, painted with free floral designs in black and white on a creamy glaze which is stained a pinkish brown colour, is an earlier product of the same potteries.
The potteries at Ch´ü–yang HsienChinese characterin the Chên–ting Fu, in Chihli, are mentioned[432]in the administrative records of the Ming dynasty in the Hsüan Tê period, and again under the dates 1553 and 1563, as supplying wine jars and vases for the Court. This place is only a few miles east of Ting Chou, which was celebrated for its white wares in the Sung period, and these references carry the record of the industry in that district to the lastpart of the Ming dynasty. Unfortunately, nothing is said of the nature of the wares made at this time for the Court.
Reference is made elsewhere (p.202) to the potteries at Wu–ch´ing Hsien, in the Peking district. Possibly these are the potteries described, by Bushell[433]as still active in modern times. "The ordinary glaze," he remarks, "is a reddish brown of marked iridescence, shining with an infinity of metallic specks, an effective background to the moulded decoration which covers the surface. The designs are generally of hieratic character."
The "sun–stone" glazes made at the Rookwood Potteries (Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.) and on the Lancastrian wares[434]are of this kind, the infinity of metallic specks being due to "super–saturation" of the glaze with iron oxide. A specimen of this modern Peking ware may be seen in the British Museum.
The tile works at Liu–li–chü, near Peking, date back to the Yüan dynasty, and their modern productions as represented in the Field Museum include a pottery with incised designs filled in with yellow, green, and dark aubergine glazes, not unlike in style to the Japanese Sanuki ware. Another type has forms taken from bronzes and is distinguished by a shining green glaze.
In the province of Shantung, besides the tile works at Lin–ch´ing,[435]the important, potteries at Yen–shên ChênChinese characterin the Ch´ing–chou Fu are noticed[436]as follows: "The inhabitants have inherited from their ancestors the art of making good pottery. The usual wares are cisterns (kang), jars (ying), cauldrons (fu), and such–like pottery (fou), made without flaw. The profit to the people is not less than that made at Ching–tê Chên on the right bank of the Yangtze." Yen–shên Chên is quite close to Po–shan Hsien, and no doubt the industry at the two places is intimately connected. The latter, which is noted to this day for its manufactures of pottery and glass, has already been mentioned[437]more than once.