Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/280

 CHINA those employed for the Sung Nan-ting, and the pot-

ters being the same, it is evident that the wares could have differed only in decorative features, if they differed at all. H’siang, in his “Illustrated Cata- logue,’ referring to the specimen of Shu-fu-yao de- picted there, says that ‘‘in its paste and form, in the colour of its glaze, and in the engraved design, it is altogether like a Tzmg piece.” Hence the conclusion must be that the Nan-ting of the Sung dynasty and the Shu-fu-yao of the Yuan (1279-1360) represented no points of appreciable difference.

Entering the Mzng dynasty an important distinction has to be noted. Researches show that until the close of the fourteenth century hard-paste porcelain was scarcely manufactured at all in China. A few speci- mens rudely decorated with blue under the glaze are attributed to the Sunag and Yuan keramists; but though, if their genuineness be admitted, they dem- onstrate that the ability to make hard-paste porce- lain was not wanting in those early days, they at the same time prove that, comparatively speaking, little care was bestowed on its manufacture. From the Yung-lo era (1403-1424) of the Ming dynasty, how- ever, not only did hard-paste porcelain become one of the choice products of Ching-té-chén, but also it reached a stage of expert manufacture incompatible with any hypothesis of sudden development or newly acquired knowledge. H’siang says that the white Yung-lo porcelain was made after the Yuan Shu-fu- yao, itself an indistinguishable reproduction of the Sung Ting-yao. It might be concluded, therefore, that the Yung-/o ware also belongs to the soft-paste variety. But here precisely the connoisseur has to make a distinction. ‘Though from the Yung-/ era

252