yü kuo t´ien ch´ing yün p´o ch´u chê. It will be observed that the colour word used is ch´ing, which has the meaning of blue or green, indifferently.
[82] Chang Ying–wên, in the Ch´ing pi tsang, written at the end of the sixteenth century.
[83] In the Ju shih we wên, quoted in the T´ao lu, bk. ix., fol. 19, where we are told that "merchants bring fragments of Ch´ai ware to sell for 100 ounces of silver. They say that if inlaid in the helmet at the approach of battle, they are able to turn aside the fire implements (huo ch´i)."
[84] For example, in the Li t´a k´an k´ao ku ou pien, a modern work, we find: "As to what they call at present Yüan and Chün wares, these in material, colour, sound, and brilliancy are similar to Ch´ai yao, but they differ in thickness, and are perhaps the common folk's imitation wares, and not the Imperial Shih Tsung ware. But we are not yet able to say. If the ware has sky blue colour, clear and brilliant on a coarse yellow brick–earth body, and rings like bronze, it must be Ch´ai ware. As to Chün ware ... the specimens have in every case red colour and variegated surface...."
[87] I have seen, for instance, a remarkable ware of white porcellanous type, with a transparent glaze of a faint bluish tinge, to which the name Ch´ai was boldly given. It was certainly an early type, perhaps as early as the Sung dynasty, but it belonged to a class of porcelain which is almost certainly Corean. The only specimen I have seen with a mark of the Posterior Chou period is not a blue–glazed piece but a large vase with wonderful purplish black glaze of the Chien–yao type in the Eumorfopoulos collection. The mark, however, has been cut at some time subsequent to the manufacture, and can only be regarded as reflecting some unknown person's opinion as to the date of the piece.
[88] Jade, op. cit., p. 17.
[89] See L. Binyon, Painting in the Far East, chap. ix.
[90] Porcelain, A Sketch of its Nature, Art and Manufacture, p. 56.