Since the extinction of the Ting kilns an opaque white stoneware has been largely manufactured in the north, and near Pekin a commoner earthenware is largely made (Bushell, pp. 631-638).
The bricks with which the Porcelain Tower of Nankin was constructed were for the most part composed of a kaolinic stoneware.
Finally, we should point out that nearly all these various kinds of stoneware are represented in the British Museum collection.
CHAPTER XI
THE PORCELAIN OF KOREA AND OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA
Korea
THE self-contained culture of the Middle Kingdom spread at an early time to the less advanced and more or less tributary countries that surrounded it: on the south to the confused complex of states that are conveniently grouped together as Indo-China; on the north to Korea; and on the east, or more accurately on the north-east, to Japan. To these islands, however, the Chinese civilisation for the most part spread by way of Korea, and as this was in a measure the route taken in the case of the potter’s art, it may be well to deal first with the great northern peninsula.
The Chinese claim to have conquered and even incorporated Korea as long ago as the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), and even before that time the country had been overrun by the Japanese. The latter people have at all times presented themselves to the Koreans as ruthless conquerors and pirates, and indeed they succeeded during their last great expedition at the end of the sixteenth century in sweeping the country so bare that to this day its poverty and the low state of its artistic culture is generally attributed to this gigantic razzia from which the country never recovered. And yet Korea has always taken a place in Japanese estimation second only to China as a source of their artistic and practical knowledge, if not of their literature and philosophy; and this is especially the case with regard to the potter’s craft—the technical part of it above all. Time and again do we hear of famous Korean potters, or even of whole families and tribes, being brought over and set to work by the local Japanese ruler either with the materials they brought with them, or with the clays and glazes that their experience enabled them to discover in their new homes.
We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that after the wonders of Japan had been laid open to the admiration of the West, the greatest hopes were entertained of finding artistic treasures at least as valuable in the great peninsula to the west which still remained a forbidden land. Failing direct evidence of this wealth, it became the habit to attribute to Korea any Oriental ware, old or new, of which the origin was unknown. This tendency was taken advantage of by more than one enterprising dealer, and when at a later time the country was in a measure thrown open, cases of gorgeously decorated Japanese ware, brand-new from Yokohama or Nagasaki, were sent round by way of Chemulpo, the port of the Korean capital, so that their Korean origin could be guaranteed. Long before this, the home of an important group of Japanese porcelain, that now generally known as ‘Kakiyemon,’ had been found by Jacquemart in Korea. Now that of late years these various fallacies and supercheries have been exposed, and that the extreme poverty of the land in artistic work of any kind has been demonstrated, we may perhaps see a tendency to an undue depreciation of the artistic capabilities of the country in former days. We must at any rate remember that the Japanese experts, who are in the best position to know, have always maintained that the Koreans in the sixteenth century were possessed of the secret of enamelling in colour upon porcelain, or, at all events, that they were acquainted with the coloured glazes of the demi grand feu, and that so good an authority as Captain Brinkley has accepted, as of Korean origin, specimens of enamelled ware still existing in Japanese collections.
Meantime we must be contented with the scanty examples of pottery, stoneware, and porcelain that have been actually brought home from Korea, and among these pieces we must discriminate between the wares of native manufacture and the porcelain that had been imported from China, either overland by way of Niu-chuang or across the Gulf of Petchili from the ports of Shantung. Of late years many specimens have been collected, chiefly at Seoul, the capital, especially by members of the various foreign legations, and some of these have found their way into European museums.[109]
Apart from some small pieces of modern blue and white and enamelled wares, undoubtedly of true porcelain, but very rough in execution and poor in colour, which are said to be of local manufacture, we find:—