Plate 22.—Vase of Lung–ch´üan Porcelain.
With grey green celadon glaze of faint bluish tone, peony scroll in low relief. Probably Sung dynasty. Height 19 1/2 inches. Peters Collection.
CHAPTER VII
TING YAO
TING ware is by general consent ranked among the finer Sung porcelains, and it is happily, like the Lung–ch´üan celadons, fairly well known to Western collectors. Its name derives from its place of origin, Ting Chou, the modern Chên–ting Fu, in the province of Chihli, where the manufacture of a white ware, if not actually a white porcelain, appears to have existed from remote times. Indeed, the "white ware (pai tz´ŭ) of Ting Chou" is mentioned in the middle of the seventh century,[188] though nothing further is heard of it until it came to enjoy the patronage of the Sung emperors. As already hinted in connection with the Ju Chou porcelain, the Ting ware suffered a temporary eclipse at Court owing to some defects in the glaze; but it was not long in recovering its reputation, for the Ko ku yao lun states that it was at its best in the Chêng Ho and Hsüan Ho periods, which extended from 1111 to 1125 A. D., and we learn that the Ting Chou potters accompanied the Court in its flight across the Yangtse in 1127. The manufacture seems to have been re–established after this event in the neighbourhood of Ching–tê Chên, and the nan ting or Southern Ting ware is said to have so closely resembled the original that to distinguish the two in after years was regarded as a supreme test of connoisseurship.[189]
Ting ware has a white body of fine grain and compact texture, varying from a slightly translucent porcelain to opaque porcellanous stoneware. Though not so completely vitrified as the more modern porcelains, and lacking their flint–like fracture, it was nevertheless capable of transmitting light in the thinner and finer specimens, and consequently it can be regarded as one of the earliest Chinese wares which fulfils the European definition of porcelain. The glaze is of ivory tint, sometimes forming on the outsides of bowls or dishes in brownish gummy tears, which were regarded by Chinese collectors as a sign of genuineness.[190] The finer and whiter varieties are known as pai ting (white Ting) and fên ting (flour Ting), as distinct from the coarser kind, whose opaque, earthy body and glaze of yellowish tone, usually crackled and stained, earned it the name of t'u ting or earthen Ting.