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 the _Chinese 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."
[Illustration: PLATE 52
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 a _ju-i_ pattern on
the shoulder. Cover with foliate edges and jewel pattern, surmounted by a
seated figure of Shou Lao, God of Longevity. About 1500 A.D.
Height 22½ inches. _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 the _Chinese 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 Chou [Chinese], 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 for the manufacture
of artistic pots for holding fighting crickets. In reference to these
we are informed in the _T´ao shuo_ (see Bushell, op. cit., p. 140) that
"those fabricated at Su Chou by the two makers named Lu [Chinese] and Tsou
[Chinese] were beautifully moulded, and artistically carved and engraved,
and the pots made by the Elder and the Younger Hsiu [Chinese], 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 Hsien [Chinese] in 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 which the 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 Philippine jars,
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 the shoulder 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.
[Illustration: PLATE 53
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 1500 A.D.
Height 19½ inches. _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
that at 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.
[Illustration: PLATE 54
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 1500 A.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
pierced _à 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 glazes _de demi-grand feu_, according to
the French definition, and they consist of turquoise and aubergine
purple or violet and green (the three colours or _san 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 designs in 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
marked _Nan 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 the _T´u shu_, which is devoted to _T´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´ai [Chinese], 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]
and 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 Sung types. 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 called _lei 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 Hsien [Chinese] in 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 last part 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 Chên [Chinese] in 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.
[Illustration:
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Plate 55.--Ming Pottery with dull _san ts´ai_ glazes.
Fig. 1.--Wine Jar with pierced outer casing, horsemen and attendants,
rocky background. Fifteenth century. Total height 19½ inches.
_Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Fig. 2.--Tripod Incense Vase, dragons and
peony designs and a panel of horsemen. Dated 1529 A.D. Height 22 inches.
_Messel Collection._]
[Illustration:
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Plate 56.--Miscellaneous Pottery.
Fig. 1--Jar with dull green glaze and formal lotus scroll in relief
touched with yellow and brown glazes. About 1600. Height 12 inches. _Guff
Collection._ Fig. 2--Beaker of bronze form, soft whitish body and dull
green glaze. (?) Seventeenth century. Height 16½ inches. _Eumorfopoulos
Collection._ Fig. 3.--vase of light buff ware with dull black dressing,
vine reliefs. Mark, _Nan hsiang t´ang_ (see p. 219). Eighteenth century.
Height 11½ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._]
At Yi-chên [Chinese] in the Yang-chou Fu, in Kiangsu, there were factories
which supplied wine jars, etc., to the palace at Nanking in the early
years of the Ming dynasty; and in the seventh year of Chia Ching (1528)
supplies of similar vessels were sent from Ning-kuo Fu [Chinese] in the
south-west of Anhui.[438] The latter place is mentioned elsewhere[439]
under its earlier name of Hsüan Chou [Chinese] as producing a thin white
ware made of "plastic clay" in the Yüan and Ming periods. A verse of
Wang Shih-chêng (1526-1593) speaks of the "snow white porcelain of Hsüan
Chou."[440] The _T´ao lu_ enumerates factories which began in the Ming
dynasty and continued to the nineteenth century, and apparently produced
an inferior type of porcelain, and probably pottery as well. They were
located at Huai-ch´ing Fu [Chinese], I-yang Hsien [Chinese], Têng-fêng
Hsien [Chinese], and Shan Chou [Chinese] in Honan; at Yi Hsien [Chinese]
and Tsou Hsien [Chinese] in Yen-chou Fu in Shantung; in the Lung Shang
[Chinese] district in Shensi, and at Hêng-fêng [Chinese] in Kiangsi.
The last-mentioned factory was established by a man named Ch´ü Chih-kao
from Ch´u-chou Fu in the early Ming period. In the Chia Ching period
(1522-1566) it was transferred to the I-yang [Chinese] district to a
place called Ma-k´êng, not many miles south of Ching-tê Chên. Both the
Lung-shang and Ma-k´êng wares are described as very coarse.
The value of pottery for architectural purposes was recognised in China
from the earliest times. Unglazed bricks and tiles of Han and pre-Han
periods are preserved by Chinese collectors, particularly when they
happen, as is often the case, to have inscriptions in old seal characters,
or other ornament. The familiar Chinese roof tile is a long convex object
like a horizontal section of a tube, and those intended for the border
are ornamented at one end with a disc, usually stamped with a dragon or
other design in sunk relief. Here and there, on the apex of the roof or
at the corners, are ornamental tiles carrying figures of deities, heroes,
mythical creatures or birds, modelled in the round and usually with great
force and skill. Besides these, architectural mouldings and antefixal
ornaments in pottery are commonly used on temples and pavilions of an
ornamental kind.
The use of tiles--and, no doubt, of other architectural embellishments
in pottery--was encouraged by government enactments at various times. In
the T´ang dynasty (618-906 A.D.),[441] in the districts south and west of
the Yangtze, under the inspectorship of a man named Tan [Chinese], the
inhabitants were ordered to use tiles on their houses in place of wood in
order to lessen the risk of fire; kilns were erected to provide the tiles,
and those who were too poor to carry out the alterations by themselves
received State help. A somewhat similar but more important edict was
issued in the twenty-seventh year of Hung Wu[442] (1394), that bricks
and tiles should be used in all the buildings in the capital, which was
then Nanking, and that kilns should be set up every year on the _Chü-pao
shan_ for their manufacture. It was not long after this that the famous
"porcelain pagoda" was erected at Nanking,[443] the lower part of which
was faced with white porcelain bricks, the remaining storeys with pottery
with coloured glazes.
Tile factories existed in all parts of China to supply local needs, and
the few singled out for mention in the _T´u Shu_[444] were perhaps of more
than usual importance in the Ming dynasty. They are Lin-ch´ing [Chinese]
in the extreme west of Shantung; Su Chou [Chinese] in Kiangsu, on the east
side of the lake T´ai-hu, and facing the potteries of Yi-hsing, which
supplied tiles for the palaces and temples of Nanking; the neighbouring
Ch´ang-chou Chên, and Yi-chên and Kua Chou in the Yang-chou Fu of the same
province; Wu-Ch´ing Hsien [Chinese], in the district of Peking, where the
potters asked for permission to make tiles for public use in 1574.
The tile works at Liu-li-chü (mentioned on p. 200) date from the Yüan
dynasty. They are also situated in the neighbourhood of Peking, but
whether in the Wu-ch´ing Hsien or not, I have failed to discover.
When Peking became the capital of the Ch´ing emperors, no doubt the
tile factories at Wu-ch´ing Hsien assumed still greater importance; and
according to the catalogue of the exhibition in Paris in 1878,[445] the
neighbourhood of Amoy was then celebrated for its bricks and tiles. This
branch of the potter's industry is represented by a small collection of
bricks, tiles, mouldings, and antefixal ornaments in the British Museum.
It includes unglazed bricks from the Great Wall of China, which may date
from 220 B.C., a few Han bricks and tile-ends with moulded ornament;
white porcelain bricks and coloured pottery tiles and mouldings from
the Nanking pagoda; and tiles from the Ming tombs near Nanking, which
were built in 1400 A.D., and like the pagoda destroyed in the T´aip´ing
rebellion in 1853. The Nanking tiles and mouldings are of hard buff
pottery with translucent glazes of green and yellow colour, minutely
crackled, additional colours being formed with red and creamy white slips.
The tile-ends are ornamented with dragon medallions.
[Illustration: PLATE 57
Seated figure of Kuan Yü, the war-god of China, a deified warrior. Reddish
buff pottery with blue, yellow and turquoise glazes, and a colourless
glaze on the white parts. Sixteenth century.
Height 20⅜ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._
]
Other architectural pottery in the same collection came from the Imperial
pleasure grounds at Peking, which were wrecked in 1860. These include
tiles and antefixal ornaments from the pavilions and temples in the Yüan
Ming Yüan and from the Summer Palace, and a few blue-glazed tiles from the
Temple of Heaven. Numerous tiles with relief figures and pottery figures
from niches were picked up in the ruins of the temples and pavilions
in the Imperial grounds after their capture in 1860; and many of the
mouldings were found to display strong European influences, due, no doubt,
to the designs of the Jesuits Attiret and Castiglione, who assisted the
Emperor Ch´ien Lung in erecting some of the buildings. Some of these are
in the British Museum besides antefixes in the form of yellow dragon
heads from the Winter Palace at Peking and from the celebrated Temple of
Kin-shan, or Golden Island, in the Yangtze; and a tile from the Huang-ssŭ,
the Great Lama temple, built by K´ang Hsi in 1647. The tile in question is
evidently part of a restoration, for it bears the date corresponding to
1770.
The ordinary tiles and mouldings are not likely to be extensively
collected by private individuals, but many of the ridge tiles, with
figures of deities, horsemen, lions, _ch´i-lin_, and phœnixes, have
found their way into collections to which their spirited modelling has
served as a passport. The glazes on these are often richly coloured, and
include yellow, green, violet purple, aubergine and purplish black, and
occasionally high-fired glazes with _flambé_ or variegated colours. By
accident or design, the figures are not infrequently detached from their
tiles and mounted on wooden stands. The pottery figures from niches in the
walls of temples and public buildings are often finely modelled and richly
glazed, and, needless to say, they find a welcome in Western collections
(Plate 58).
It is a common but illogical practice to assign all these figures in
architectural pottery to the Ming dynasty; illogical, because so many
of them have been brought from the Imperial buildings at Peking which
are known to have been mostly erected in the K´ang Hsi and Ch´ien Lung
period. On the other hand, nothing is more difficult to date than this
type of glazed pottery, in which the ware, the colours, and the decorative
traditions seem to have continued almost unchanged from the early Ming
times to the present day. The tiles from the Nanking pagoda and from the
eighteenth-century buildings at Peking are practically interchangeable.
Nor must we forget that the potters who made the architectural pottery
often turned their hands and materials to the manufacture of vases and
figures and other ceramic ornaments for domestic use, and even imposing
altar sets for the temples. An important example of this work is seen in
Fig. 2 of Plate 55, a large incense vase[446] of traditional form (from
an altar set) with bowl-shaped body, wide mouth, two upstanding handles,
and three feet with lion masks. It is ornamented with a peony scroll and
two dragons in high relief, and is made of pottery with a dull turquoise
green glaze. An inscription on the handles proclaims the fact that it was
"dedicated by the chieftain Kuo Hsin-shê; made in the eighth year of Chia
Ching," i.e. 1529. In more recent times the tile works near Peking have
turned their attention to the manufacture of vases and bowls with rich
soft monochrome glazes, yellow, green, turquoise and aubergine in the
manner of the similarly coloured porcelains which are highly prized, and,
as Bushell tells us, "the soft excipient (i.e. the pottery body) seems to
impart an added softness" to the glazes. "The fact that yellow clay," he
continues, "used often to be mixed with the porcelain earth in the old
fabrics to enhance the brilliancy of the glaze colours, gives a certain
vraisemblance to the fraudulent reproductions which I have seen sold for
as many dollars as they would cost in cents to produce." It is unlikely
that the issue of these by-products of the tile factories is confined to
the neighbourhood of Peking. Among the miscellaneous potteries I should
add that Ka-shan,[447] in Chekiang, is reputed to have been noted in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for a fine porcellanous stoneware
with opaque, camellia-leaf green glaze minutely crackled.
[Illustration:
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Fig. 3 Fig. 4
Plate 58.--Miscellaneous Pottery.
Fig. 1.--Jar with lotus design in green, yellow and turquoise glazes in an
aubergine ground. About 1600. Height 6½ inches. _Hippisley Collection.
_Fig. 2.--Vase of double fish form, buff ware with turquoise, yellow and
aubergine glazes. (?) Seventeenth century. Height 5¾ inches. _British
Museum._ Fig. 3.--Roof-tile with figure of Bodhidharma, deep green and
creamy white glazes. Sixteenth century. Height 10⅞ inches. _Benson
Collection._ Fig. 4.--Bottle with archaic dragon (_ch´ih lung_) on neck,
variegated glaze of lavender, blue and green clouded with purple and
brown. (?) Eighteenth century Yi-hsing ware. Height 10 inches. _Peters
Collection._]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 409: S. Wells Williams, _Chinese Commercial Guide_, 1863, p.
132.]
[Footnote 410: Op. cit., p. 114.]
[Footnote 411: A coarse blue and white porcelain, often decorated with
dragons which overlap the rim and are continued on the reverse of the
bowls and dishes, seems to belong to one of these provincial factories.
The glaze is thick and bubbly, and the blue of the decoration rather
dull and dark; but these pieces have a certain age, and belong to the
first half of the eighteenth century, for they were copied at Worcester
and Lowestoft. They often have marks "of commendation," such as _hsi yü_
("western jade"), etc.]
[Footnote 412: The _Ch´in ting ku chin t´u shu chi ch´êng_, section viii.,
subsection named _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol. 15.]
[Footnote 413: [Chinese] _sung hsiang_, rendered "turpentine" by Bushell,
_O.C.A._, p. 264.]
[Footnote 414: [Chinese] _wu ming i_, "nameless rarity," the designation
under which cobalt was imported in the Sung dynasty. (See Bushell,
_O.C.A._, p. 439.)]
[Footnote 415: _Chau Ju-kua_, translated by F. Hirth and W.W. Rockhill.
St. Petersburg, 1912.]
[Footnote 416: _Ancient Chinese Porcelain_, op. cit. See also p. 86.]
[Footnote 417: See _Chau Ju-kua_, Introduction, p. 9.]
[Footnote 418: e.g. gusi, rusa, naga, tempajan, blanga.]
[Footnote 419: _Chinese Pottery in the Philippines_, by Fay-Cooper Cole,
with a postscript by Berthold Laufer, Field Museum of Natural History,
Publication No. 162, Chicago U.S.A., 1912.]
[Footnote 420: _Ibidem_, p. 14.]
[Footnote 421: Kochi, the Japanese name for Kochin China, seems to have
been used in a vague and comprehensive sense for Southern China, and we
understand by _Kochi yaki_ the old pottery shipped from the coast towns
of Fukien and Kuangtung. This category in Japan seems to include not only
a variety of earthenware with coloured glazes--green, yellow, aubergine,
turquoise, and violet--but the coarser, yellowish white wares of the _t´u
ting_ (see p. 90) type. See Brinkley, op. cit., vol. ix. p. 29.]
[Footnote 422: On the subject of pottery among the Dyaks in Borneo, see H.
Ling Roth, _The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo_, vol. ii., p.
284; A.W. Neuwenhais, _Quer durch Borneo_, vol. ii., plate 40; Hose and
McDougall, _The Pagan Tribes of Borneo_, 1912, vol. i., pp. 64 and 84,
and plates 46-48. See also A.B. Meyer, _Alterthümer aus dem Ostindischen
Archipel_.]
[Footnote 423: _Cat. B.F.A._, 1910, I., 11.]
[Footnote 424: A little flask in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Case
24, No. 809, 1883) of this type of ware with a green glaze was obtained
in 1883 in the neighbourhood of Canton. Possibly a portion of this group
comes from one of the Canton factories, but it is the kind of ware which
might have been made in any pottery district, and there are quite modern
examples of the same type of glaze and biscuit in the Field Museum of
Chicago which were manufactured at Ma-chuang, near T´ai-yüan Fu, in
Shensi.]
[Footnote 425: See p. 219.]
[Footnote 426: _T´u Shu_, op. cit., section _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol.
9.]
[Footnote 427: Ching is the name of the old state of Ch´u, which included
Hunan and Hupeh, so that the expression here used covers an enormous tract
of Central China. See _T´u shu_, section _T´ao kung pu tsa lu_, fol. 2.]
[Footnote 428: _T´u Shu_, section _T´ao kung pu chi shih_, fol. 2 recto.]
[Footnote 429: [Chinese] and [Chinese].]
[Footnote 430: This appears to mean that the glaze covering up the reliefs
filled all the surrounding hollows and made an even surface.]
[Footnote 431: i.e. ware of the Hsüan Tê period (1426-1435 A.D.).]
[Footnote 432: _T´u Shu_, section _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol. 10.]
[Footnote 433: _O.C.A._, p. 637.]
[Footnote 434: Made at Pilkington's Tile Works, Clifton Junction, by
Manchester.]
[Footnote 435: See p. 202.]
[Footnote 436: _T´u Shu_, section entitled _T´ao kung pu tsa lu_, fol. 2
verso.]
[Footnote 437: On pp. 103 and 188.]
[Footnote 438: _T´u Shu_, section xxxii, _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol. 9.]
[Footnote 439: _T´ao lu_, bk. vii., fol. 10 verso.]
[Footnote 440: Quoted in the _T´ao lu_, bk. ix., fol. 2.]
[Footnote 441: Recorded in the _T´ang Shu_, the passage in question being
quoted in the encyclopædia, _T´u Shu_, section xxxii, _T´ao kung pu chi
shih_, fol. 1 verso.]
[Footnote 442: See the _T´u Shu_, section _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol. 7
verso.]
[Footnote 443: It was completed in 1430, and destroyed by the T´aip´ing
rebels in 1853.]
[Footnote 444: In the section _T´ao kung pu hui k´ao_, fol. 9.]
[Footnote 445: _Catalogue spécial de la Collection Chinoise_, op. cit.,
pp. 10-12. The exhibits from Amoy included "carreaux de pavage, tuiles
pour toitures."]
[Footnote 446: See _Catalogue B.F.A._, 1910, L. 1.]
[Footnote 447: See Dr. Voretzsch, _Catalogue of Chinese Pottery._]