1. A plain white ware often showing signs of age, but apparently in no way differing from the ivory-white ware of Fukien. Japanese experts, however, claim to distinguish pieces of Korean origin. Such specimens are much valued in Japan, and some are said to have been brought back after the great expedition at the end of the sixteenth century. We find also specimens of a heavy white ware, with decoration in a high relief, which is undoubtedly of native origin. At Sèvres is a large white vase, with dragons in relief, brought from Seoul.
2. Celadon porcelain, of many types. Of this ware there are many specimens in our museums. At Sèvres we find two bowls of a fine rich tint of olive green, presented by the King of Korea to the late President Carnot ‘as the most valuable of the ancient productions of his poor country.’ In the same collection may be seen a case full of important specimens brought back in 1893 by M. de Plancy, the French diplomatic agent at Seoul. Among them are some large rude celadon vases, one with some attempts at blue decoration under the glaze. In the British Museum are several celadon bowls, some with moulded floral patterns in relief. Among some bowls of a greyish celadon from Korea, in the Ethnographical Museum at Dresden, I noticed some with an unglazed ring on the upper surface, pointing to a primitive method of support in the furnace, perhaps similar to that formerly employed in Siam. Dr. Bushell quotes from a Chinese work on Korea, written in the first half of the twelfth century, an account of the elaborately moulded wine-cups and vessels of all kinds made in that country. This ware is described as of a kingfisher green, but it may probably be regarded as a full-coloured variety of celadon. This interpretation is confirmed by a later Chinese work (published 1387), which distinctly says—I quote from Dr. Bushell’s translation—‘The ceramic objects produced in the ancient Korean kilns were of a greyish green colour resembling the celadon ware of Lung-chuan. There was one kind overlaid with white sprays of flowers, but this was not valued so very highly’ (Oriental Ceramic Art, p. 681).
3. An important class of Korean ware is formed by the coarsely crackled pieces of brownish or yellow colour, which in China would probably be classed as Ko yao. These are often roughly decorated with daubs of blue under the glaze, resembling in this some of the older pieces brought from Borneo.
4. A greyish ware, inlaid with designs of white slip, on the principle of our ‘encaustic tiles’ of the Middle Ages. This is perhaps the only original type that we can connect with Korea, and it would seem that this is the ware alluded to at the end of the quotation we have just given from an old Chinese book. This inlaid ware appears to have been greatly admired by the Japanese, for it was closely imitated in more than one district. The well-known Yatsushiro pottery, first made in the province of Higo in the seventeenth century, is distinctly a copy of this Korean model. Among the specimens at Sèvres brought home by M. de Plancy, there is a tall vase of this type cut down in the neck decorated with flying cranes in white slip. This ware, however, is not a true porcelain; at the best it is a kind of kaolinic stoneware, and the same may be said of most of the old heavy pieces brought back from Korea.
There is not much in the way of decorative design to be found on any of the varieties of Korean porcelain or stoneware that we have now described, and we may look in vain among the few ornamental motifs to be found on these wares for any marked divergency from Chinese types.
Siam and the Indo-Chinese Peninsula.
Under the somewhat vague heading of Indo-China we will collect a few notes upon the specimens of porcelain that have been found in the various states into which the great peninsula that stretches south between the China Sea and the Bay of Bengal is divided.
In looking through the artistic productions of all these countries, we find one marked characteristic; and that is the way in which Chinese forms and Chinese decorative motifs have pushed their way in and in part replaced the old Buddhist and Brahmanistic styles.
As matters now stand, the most important for us of these states is Siam, for here we are at once brought face to face with one of the places of manufacture of the famous heavy celadon ware which in the Middle Ages was carried by Arab and Chinese traders over all the seas of the then known world. We shall have in a later chapter to come back to the question of this trade, and then we shall be able to show that the discussion as to the origin of this martabani ware has been the means, as is indeed often the case in such disputes, of throwing much light on the early history of Chinese porcelain.
For the present we are only concerned with an important discovery quite recently made not far from the frontier of Siam and Pegu. Many specimens of celadon, some of the older type, have come in recent years from various parts of Indo-China. In the museum at Sèvres are some pieces of rough greyish ware, with a thick, irregularly crackled glaze, brought back in 1893 by the Mission Fournereux from Siam and Cambodia; among these fragments of old celadon we find a pair of contorted bowls, fused together in the kiln, in fact undoubted ‘wasters,’ such as could only be found in the neighbourhood of the furnaces where they were fired. At the instigation of Mr. C. H. Read of the British Museum, Mr. Lyle has lately explored the remains of old potteries now hidden in deep jungle, at a place called Sawankalok, not far from the western frontier of Siam. These old kilns are situated some two hundred miles to the north of Bangkok, and about the same distance from the port of Molmein (Malmen). To show the importance of this discovery, we need only point out that near to the latter town lies the old port of Martaban, which played so important a part in the mediæval trade of the Arabs, and from which, doubtless, the name of Martabani, by which celadon ware has always been known in the Mohammedan East, is derived. Among the many fragments brought back by Mr. Lyle are some which from their distinct translucency, and from the whiteness and the conchoidal fracture of the paste, may be unhesitatingly classed as true porcelain. The colour of the glaze varies from a prevailing greyish green to a fine turquoise tint in a few specimens. That the ware was made on the spot is proved by the presence of many defective pieces—‘wasters’ that had been thrown away—as well as by the numerous conical props (for the support of the ware in the kiln) found mixed with the fragments. On these tall, nozzle-shaped props the plates and bowls were supported in an inverted position. It is by this unusual method of support that we may account for the fact that the glaze covers the whole of the lower surface—so exceptional an occurrence in the case of porcelain—and at the same time for the absence of the glaze from a ring-like portion of the upper surface. We may note that a similar distribution of the glaze is found occasionally on large plates of the old heavy ware brought from other countries; of this there are notable examples in the museum at Gotha ([see page 72]). The ground in these Siamese specimens has assumed where exposed, but there only, the deep red so admired by the Chinese in the old Lung-chuan ware. The paste, in many of the examples, has been moulded in low relief in the characteristic lotus-leaf pattern, while on a few pieces there is a rough decoration in greenish black under the glaze. All remembrance of these old kilns has completely passed away, and at the present day the local market is supplied with a rough stoneware brought overland from Yunnan.[110]