Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares

by R. L. Hobson

LUNG–CH´ÜAN YAO

IN discussing the celebrated Lung–ch´üan celadons, we are able to build our structure on a more solid basis. For one group of them, at any rate, is so familiar that we should be tempted to abandon the difficult Chinese descriptions and construct an essay on the ware from actually existing specimens, were it not that in so doing we should miss our chief opportunity of applying a living test to the Chinese phrases.

The district of Lung–ch´üan in the prefecture of Ch´u–chou, province of Chekiang, was noted for its potteries as early[154] as the beginning of the Sung dynasty, but its greatest celebrity was attained by the market town of Liu–t´ien, where the Chang brothers are reputed to have worked.[155] The story that the elder Chang moved to Liu–t´ien while the younger brother remained at Lung–ch´üan is, I believe, based on a misreading of a Chinese passage,[156] the true meaning of which seems to be that while the elder brother made new departures which earned for his ware the distinctive name of Ko yao, the younger continued the Lung–ch´üan traditions, and consequently his ware was known as Lung–ch´üan yao. It appears that one vital difference between the two wares was crackle, which was used by the elder and not by the younger brother.

The productions of the Lung–ch´üan district are variously named in the Ko ku yao lun, "Ch´u ware" (from Ch´u–chou Fu, the name of the prefecture), "ch´ing ware," and "old ch´ing ware," and the various Chinese accounts agree in distinguishing two broad classes, the one having a thin body of fine material, and the other a thick body of coarser and heavier make.

The first of these two classes includes the Chang yao, or ware of the younger Chang, of which the Ch´ing pi ts´ang gives the following description: "There is one kind in the manufacture of which white clay is used, and the surface of the ware is covered with ts´ui[157] glaze through which the white shows in faint patches. This is what was made by the Chang family in the Sung dynasty, and is called Chang yao. Compared with the Lung–ch´üan ware in style and make, it gives the impression of greater delicacy and refinement." Another writer[158] describes it as "single–coloured and pure, like beautiful jade, and ranking with the Kuan yao; whereas the Ko yao was pale in colour."

The eleven examples figured and described in Hsiang's Album are all apparently of this class, and their colour is variously described as "green, of jade–green tint (ts´ui pi), like a wet, mossy bank or slender willow twigs," "green like the green of onion (sprouts)" (ts´ui jo ch´ing ts´ung), "green like parrot's feathers," "green like the dull green (lü) of a melon," and "soft jade–green like onion sprouts in autumn." Hsiang's similes leave no doubt as to the prevailing tint of the ware, which clearly aimed at rivalling the tint of the prized green jade. As might be expected, few if any of Chang's celadons are to be found in our collections. Relatively few in numbers, assuming them to have been the work of one lifetime, and slender in structure, it is improbable that many of them can have survived the chances of eight or nine hundred years, and even supposing that any of them have reached Europe, their identity now could only be a matter of conjecture.

The second class is best known to us in those thick, massive porcelains with greyish white body and smooth grey green glaze which have been named in Persian countries martabani and in Europe celadon. The former name is no doubt derived from the port of Martaban, on the coast of Pegu, a meeting place of Eastern and Western traders, from which the Chinese goods were shipped or transhipped for Europe and the nearer East. The latter name has a more capricious origin, deriving from the shepherd Céladon, a stage personality whose familiar grey green clothing suggested a name for the grey green porcelain. He appeared in one of the plays founded on the early seventeenth–century romance, L'Astrée, written by Honoré d'Urfé.

Large dishes and plates, bowls, vases, bulb bowls and jars of this green ware have found their way to all parts of Europe in considerable numbers, and they evidently formed a staple of far Eastern trade in the Middle Ages. The subject of their distribution will be treated presently. First, we must complete their description.

The ware, as a general rule, has a greyish white mass varying from porcelain to stoneware, and with the peculiar quality of assuming a reddish brown tint wherever the glaze is absent and the "biscuit" was exposed to the fire of the kiln. It has, in fact, the "iron foot" though not the "brown mouth," for the body is of a whitish colour under the glaze, and consequently the mouth of the vessel varies from green to greenish white, according to the thickness of the glaze. The decoration is either carved, etched with fine point, or raised in relief by pressing in an intaglio mould or by the application of small ornaments separately formed in moulds. All these processes are applied to the body before the glaze is added, and the glaze, though covering them over, is transparent enough to allow the details to appear fairly distinctly. In the case of the applied reliefs, however, the glaze is often locally omitted, and the ornaments stand out in biscuit, which has assumed the usual reddish brown tint. This is well illustrated on Plate 21, in which two brown fishes are represented swimming round a sea green dish. A dish in the British Museum shows three fishes swimming beneath the green surface of the glaze. This fish design was frequent enough to have earned special notice in Chinese books, which are excessively niggard in their enumeration of designs. The Ko ku yao lun,[159] for instance, says "there is one kind of dish on the bottom of which is a pair of fishes, and on the outside are copper rings attached to lift it."