Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/290

 CHINA

such a close resemblance to the Ting-yao of Pechili that only skilled connoisseurs could detect the differ- ence. Finally there is the factory at Pai-tu-chin (vil- lage of white clay) where a ware called Siao-yao manufactured originally turning the Sung dynasty, obtained a large share of public favour. Representa- tive pieces had thin white péte and brilliant glaze. They were of similar colour to Timg-yao and did not much yield to it in excellence of technique. Accord- ing to a work quoted in the Tao-/u, this factory, in the days of its prosperity, had about thirty furnaces, gave employment to several hundred potters, and was under the orders of a director-general.

Kiang-nan was not the only province where soft- paste porcelain of the T7mg-yao type constituted a staple of keramic industry. In the southern province of Kiang-si a factory in the Ki-chou district followed the same line. Brief allusion has already been made to this factory in the chapter on Sung wares. There were five kilns, all engaged in producing white and purple porcelains of the 7zmg kind. Among the ex- perts Shu-Hung and his daughter, Chiao, developed special skill. Their pieces commanded high prices and ranked almost on a par with true Ting-yao, though they are said to have been thicker and coarser. The factory ceased to work in the second half of the thirteenth century. Ware of the same character was also manufactured at Yang-chiang in Kwang-tung, and subsequently, at Swatow in the same province.

There is no doubt that as the lapse of time ren- dered connoisseurs less familiar with the distinctive features — often insignificant — of the porcelains em- inating from these various factories, the term “ Ting- yao”’ came to be applied in a sense wider than the

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