Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/113

 nothing is known. It is recorded that an emperor of the Sui dynasty (583 ) ordered the potters of the district to furnish keramic wares to the Court by way of impost. Not till the beginning of the seventh century, however, is any clue obtained as to the wares themselves. The Tao-yao and Ho-yao—described in a previous chapter—then made their appearance and were compared to white jade. The manufactures of the place received no further notice for nearly four hundred years, when, in the period Ching-tê (1004—1007), the Sung emperor Chin-tsong conferred on the workers in a special factory the title of "Keramists to the Court." When it is remembered that under the Sung rulers wares of such note as the Ting-yao, the Kuan-yao, the Ju-yao, and the Chün-yao, were produced, the conclusion cannot be avoided that the potters of Ching-tê-chên must have developed a high degree of skill to be honoured by such a distinction. The Tao-lu, though nominally a history of Ching-tê-chên keramics, does not describe the wares manufactured there at this epoch, further than to say that their pâte was white and comparatively thin, that their surface was polished and lustrous, and that they were distinguished alike by the éclat of their glaze, the fineness of their biscuit, and the elegance of their shape. Imitations of them are said to have found ready purchasers throughout the empire. That alone would suffice to show that the wares did not differ from their contemporaries in excellence of technique. They were, in fact, céladons, and white, or rice-white, pieces. The emperor ordered that specimens intended for imperial use should be marked Ching-tê nien chi, which signifies "made (chi) in the Ching-tê year." In what