Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/43



LTHOUGH the conclusions hitherto stated have been based chiefly upon written records, and therefore lack the certainty imparted by actual examination of a number of authentic specimens, the student can be reasonably sure that up to the middle of the tenth century the highest achievement of the Chinese keramist was stone-ware or semi-porcelain, and that his glazes were all monochromes, green, white, and muddy yellow, the first two being intended to imitate jade.

Henceforth firmer ground is trodden. Japanese annals and traditions assist, especially as their trustworthiness is established from point to point by a remarkable work which Dr. S. W. Bushell of the British Legation in Peking, recently translated. It is a manuscript entitled Li tai ming ts'u t'ou p'u, or "Illustrated Description of the Celebrated Wares of different Dynastics." The author, Hsiang Yuan-p'ien, was a writer and artist of renown, who flourished during the second half of the sixteenth century. An ardent virtuoso, he devoted much of his time to collecting choice specimens of the wares of the Sung, Yuan, and Ming dynasties. From the pieces which thus came