ware, after the Ta Kuan period.
[115] A passage quoted in T´ao lu, bk. ix., fol. 13, from an eighteenth–century work, the Wên fang ssŭ k´ao, forms a commentary on this attitude. "The old capital Kuan factory," It says, "had only a brief existence, so that we must consider the Hsiu nei ssŭ make to be first and the 'recent wares' to be second."
[116] The list of wares made at the Imperial factories at Ching–tê Chên about 1730, and published in the Chiang hsi t´ung chih (vol. xciii., fol. 11), refers to the imitation of Kuan wares as follows: "Ta Kuan glazes on an iron–coloured body. These are three kinds—yüeh pai, fên ch´ing, ta lü—all imitating the colour and lustre of Sung ware sent to (or from) the palace (nei fa sung ch´i)." There is no reason to suppose that Ta Kuan here is more than a mere synonym for Kuan (ware).
[117] Chang Ying–wên in the Ch´ing pi tsang, published in 1595.
a phrase which is not very lucid. In fact, I suspect a confusion with another tan
, which means "egg," and would give the sense "egg white," like the luan pai of the Ju yao.
[119] On the subject of crackle, see vol. ii., p. 197. The idea of a crackle assuming the form of round four– or five–petalled flowers like plum blossoms was carried out by the Ch´ien Lung potters on some of the medallion bowls (see vol. ii., p. 244), with a ground of bluish green enamel on which a network of lines and plum blossoms was traced in black.