Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/72

 brown." There will be occasion to speak hereafter of the Yao-p'ieu, or Transmutation ware. Here it will suffice to say that these accidental changes of colour in the kiln, owing to the oxidation of the copper in the glaze, suggested to the early potters a variety of céladon much admired and greatly prized by amateurs in subsequent centuries. In this exceedingly rare ware the uniformity of the surface is relieved by metallic spots, distributed with more or less regularity. In choice specimens the colour of the spots is lustrous, golden brown, and they seem to float suspended, as it were, in the velvety green, or bluish green, glaze. Good examples of this spotted céladon are practically unprocurable, and the estimation in which they are held, added to their scarcity, gives them an extravagant value. In Japan the ware is called Tobi-Seiji. A few pieces exist there in ancient collections, but among the many grand céladons presented by the Shôgun Yoshimasa (1490) and the Regent Hideyoshi (1580) to the principal temples throughout the empire, there is not a single vase of the spotted variety.

One interesting specimen of Sung Ko-yao ware and ten examples of the Lung-chuan-yao are to be seen depicted in the "Illustrated Catalogue" of H'siang. The colour of the Ko-yao piece is pale green; that of the Lung-chuan examples varies from "dark green" and "deep emerald" to "grass green" and the "bright green of fresh onion sprouts." Only one piece of the Lung-chuan-yao is crackled. The forms and decorative designs are borrowed, in almost every case, from ancient bronzes.

To Western eyes one of the most attractive wares manufactured during the Sung dynasty was the Chün-yao. In point of antiquity this ware ranks first