Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/71

 (about 1350). The porcelain stone was procured from Hang-chou, as in the days of the Chang brothers, but it gave a comparatively coarse, chalky pâte. A Chinese work, quoted by Dr. Hirth, says:—"To imitate the Ko-yao crackle it is impossible to make the iron-coloured bottom. If the imitation has this characteristic, its timbre is bad. Similarly it is impossible to reproduce the pale colour of the original Lung-chuan ware. If the reproduction is accurate in respect of colour, it will not ring. This is one of the points in which the superiority of the old ware becomes apparent."

It has been supposed that the Lung-chuan-yao was pre-eminently the céladon ware of former times. Dr. Hirth has helped to confirm this misconception. Certainly if there is question only of the specimens now procurable in bric-à-brac shops or existing in the collections of Western amateurs, one may assert with tolerable confidence that whenever they date so far back as the Ming dynasty nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand were the work of the Chu-chou potters. But really choice céladons belong either to the Kuan-yao, the Ju-yao, or the true Lung-chuan-yao. These alone are of the highest quality. A fine céladon glaze had been the chief aim of China's best potters long before the days of the brothers Chang.

A book called the Po-wu-yao-lau, translated by Dr. Hirth, says "Kuan-yao as well as of Ko-yao vessels there are pieces which have changed colour during the firing (Yao-p'ieu) and exhibit figures resembling butterflies, birds, fishes, unicorns, or leopards, inasmuch as the colour in part of the original enamel has by some unaccountable process during the firing, undergone a transmutation into light brown or red