Plate 10.—T'ang Pottery. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 1.—Dish with mirror pattern incised and coloured blue, green, etc.; inner border of ju–i cloud scrolls on a mottled yellow ground, outer border of mottled green; pale green glaze underneath and three tusk–shaped feet. Diameter 15 inches. Fig. 2.—Ewer with serpent handle and trilobed mouth; applied rosette ornaments and mottled glaze, green, yellow and white. Height 10 5/8 inches.
Plate 11.—T´ang Wares.
Fig. 1.—Cup with bands of impressed circles, brownish yellow glaze outside, green within. Height 2 5/8 inches. Seligmann Collection. Fig. 2.—Cup of hard white ware with greenish white glaze. Height 2 3/8 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection. Fig. 3.—Melon–shaped Vase, greyish stoneware with white slip and smooth ivory glaze. Height 4 inches. Breuer Collection. Fig. 4.—Cup of porcellanous stoneware, white slip and crackled creamy white glaze, spur marks inside. Height 3 1/4 inches. Breuer Collection.
The truth is, our knowledge of T´ang pottery has only just begun, and now that the ware is esteemed in Europe at its proper worth, the choicer specimens which have been treasured in China are finding their way westward. Every fresh arrival tells us something new and surprising, and it only wanted such a piece as Fig. 1, Plate 10, to establish the identity of the specimens whose T´ang origin we had before only ventured to conjecture. Here we have a form of dish which is found among the tomb wares of the T´ang period, made of the typical T´ang white–body and finished in characteristic fashion and decorated with engraved designs of the most advanced type, filled in with coloured glazes, in addition to bands of mottling in green and white, and yellow and white. There are, besides, other specimens of similar make but with simpler, though scarcely less interesting, design of a mirror–shaped panel formed of radiating lotus leaves engraved in the centre with a stork in white and green, all in a deep violet blue ground. The coloured glazes used in the T´ang polychrome pottery are light and translucent lead glazes of the kind which reappears on the Ming and Ch´ing pottery and porcelain, and, as on the later wares, they are covered with minute accidental crackle. In their splashed and mottled varieties they have, as already noted, a resemblance to the glazes of the eighteenth–century Whieldon ware of Staffordshire, and it is interesting to note that the T´ang potters also used another form of decoration which was much fancied in Staffordshire about a thousand years later. This is the marbling of the ware, not merely by mottling the glaze as in Fig. 2 of Plate 9, or by marbling the surface, but by blending dark and light clays in the body as in the "solid agate" ware of Staffordshire. It only remains to prove that painting with a brush was practised by the T´ang potters, and though one is loath to accept such a revolutionary idea without positive proof, there is very good reason to think that such pieces[53] as Fig. 3, Plate 12, belong to the T´ang period. They have a white pottery body, painted in bold floral scroll designs in black under a beautiful green glaze. We are getting used to surprises in connection with T´ang pottery, and probably in a year's time painted T´ang wares, which are now only accepted with reserve, will be an established fact which passes without comment.
Stamped patterns are not uncommon, and we often find small rings or concentric circles, singly, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 11, or stamped in clusters of five or seven, forming rosettes[54]; or, again, impressed key fret, as in Fig. 1 of Plate 12, which has a deep leaf green glaze.
The influence of the Western Asiatic civilisations has been already mentioned in casual hints, but it appears in concrete form in the peculiar shape of the ewer on Plate 9. The bird–headed vessel is found in Persian pottery of an early date, one example of which may be seen in the British Museum. Another remarkable instance of this form was illustrated and discussed by Dr. Martin in the Burlington Magazine, September, 1912.[55] It had, in addition, applied relief ornaments of a kind which we have already noticed, and Dr. Martin expressed his opinion that both the form and the ornaments are nearly related to Sassanian metal work. The fact that the last Sassanid king sought help from China[56] points to intercourse between the two realms, and in any case the northern trade route through Turkestan into Western Asia gave ample opportunity for the traffic in Persian and Sassanian wares. But more remarkable still is the classical spirit displayed in the piping boy and dancing girl[57] on a wonderful flask in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 18, Fig. 2). The Græeco–Buddhist influence on early Chinese sculpture has already been remarked, and several classical designs are commonly pointed out on the T´ang metal mirrors; but here we have in pottery a figure which might have been taken from a Herculaneum fresco, surrounded by scroll–work worthy of the finest T´ang mirror. The body of the ware is whitish pottery, and the beautifully moulded surface is covered with a brownish green glaze, which, like that of Fig. 1, Plate 12, is clearly a survival of the Han glaze. Other instances might be quoted of Græco–Roman influences reflected in T´ang wares. There are obvious traces of the "egg and tongue" and "honeysuckle" patterns in border designs, and the shapes of vases and ewers often betray a feeling which is more Greek than Chinese.