Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/110

 era, but not to be regarded as truly representative examples of the wares after which they are named.

The record arrives now at the keramic metropolis of China, Ching-tê-chên. Here during the past eight centuries have stood the Imperial Factories, and here have been produced the vast majority of the works upon which the fame of Chinese potters rests. Ching-tê-chên is situated on the banks of the Chang-kiang, a branch of the great Yangtze-kiang, in the province of Kiang-si. Its potteries were established in the sixth century under the Chin dynasty (557–588). The place was then known as Chang-nan-chin (town on the southern bank of the Chang), but in the Ching-tê era (1004–1007) of the Sung dynasty its name was changed to Ching-tê-chên (town of the Ching-tê era). This change was in commemoration of the establishment of a special factory for the production of pieces to be used by the Court. Under each succeeding dynasty, the Yuan Mongols, the native Ming, and the Tartar Tsing, Ching-tê-chên continued to be the great centre of the potter's art. Under the Yuan emperors the inspector of the factories was no less a personage than the Governor of Kiang-si, and in 1369 the Ming sovereign appointed a special magistrate to act as overseer. M. d'Entre-colles, in his Lettres édifiantes, gives the following interesting account of the place as it was in his time (1625):–

Ching-tê-chên wants only walls to merit the name of city and be comparable with the vastest and most populous towns in China. These places named Chên, of which but few exist, but which are easy of access and have a large trade, are generally without walls, perhaps in order that they may extend and grow as much as they please; perhaps be-