PLATE 16.
Sung Wares
Fig. 1.—Bowl with six–lobed sides; thin porcellanous ware, burnt brown at the foot–rim, with bluish green celadon glaze irregularly crackled. Alexander Collection. Diameter 9 1/2 inches.
Fig. 2.—Tripod Incense Burner. White porcelain, burnt pale red under the feet. P Lung–ch´üan celadon ware. This kind of celadon is known as kinuta. seiji in Japan, where it is highly prized. Eumorfopoulos Collection. Height 4 1/8 inches.
Another specimen of reputed Ju ware is an exquisite peach–shaped brush–washer or cup in the Eumorfopoulos Collection (Plate 15, Fig. 1). It has a dark–coloured body and a beautiful smooth glaze of pale greenish grey tint, and whatever its origin, it is certainly a refined and beautiful example of the potter's art.
Kuan yao
This ware is only second in importance to the Ju yao, and its exact nature is scarcely less speculative. The name, which means "official" or "Imperial" ware, seems to have been first applied to the porcelains made for Imperial use at the Northern Sung capital, the modern K´ai–fêng Fu, in Honan. The factory was established at the command of the Emperor Hui Tsung in the Chêng Ho period (1111–1117), according to the earliest[113] or in the preceding Ta Kuan period (1107–1110), according to a later[114] account. Its career, however, was interrupted by the flight of the Sung Court south of the Yangtze in 1127, though it is probable that a number of the potters followed the Court. At any rate, the traditions of the original factory were continued at the new capital, Hang Chou, by an official named Shao Ch´êng–shang, who set up kilns in the Imperial precincts, in the department called Hsiu net ssŭ. Another writer locates this factory under the Phœnix Hill. Shortly afterwards a new pottery was started "below the suburban altar" at Hang Chou, which copied the forms of the older Kuan ware, but without equalling its quality. We have then no fewer than three different makes all included in the name of Kuan yao, all following one tradition but differing, as we shall see, in material and quality.
The first is the K´ai–fêng Fu variety. The earlier writers in the Cho kêng lu and Ko ku yao lun make no attempt to differentiate[115] this porcelain from the later Kuan yao, but we find in a sixteenth–century collection of miscellanies, the Liu ch´ing jih cha, the following scrap of information: that "specimens (of the K´ai–fêng ware) with streaky colour, white on the upper part and thin as paper, were inferior to Ju ware"; and the more modern T´ao lu informs us that the K´ai–fêng Kuan ware was made of fine unctuous material with thin body, the colour of the glaze being ch´ing (blue or green) with a tinge of pale red (fên hung) and of varying depth of tone. It is further stated that in the Ta Kuan period moon white or clair de lune (yüeh pai), pale green or blue (fên ch´ing) and deep green (ta lü) glazes were esteemed, whereas in the Chêng Ho period only the ch´ing colour in varying depth of tone was used. Moreover, the glaze had "crab's claw crackle," and the vessels had a "red–brown mouth and iron foot." The latter phrase (explained below) is not consistent with the account in the Liu ch´ing jih cha, "white on the upper part," which certainly implies a light–coloured clay, but I confess that I have little confidence in the subtle distinctions of the T´ao lu in this passage. They are mere assertions, without any reasons given, and it is not difficult to find a source from which they may in part, at least, have been derived, and which in itself guarantees no such differentiation.[116] It is likely enough that the K´ai–fêng ware differed in body from the red ware of Hang Chou, but it is not likely to have differed very greatly in other respects, seeing that the southern variety continued the traditions of the northern, and that the earliest authorities do not trouble to distinguish the two wares at all.