Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/280

those employed for the Sung Nan-ting, and the potters being the same, it is evident that the wares could have differed only in decorative features, if they differed at all. H'siang, in his "Illustrated Catalogue," referring to the specimen of Shu-fu-yao depicted there, says that "in its paste and form, in the colour of its glaze, and in the engraved design, it is altogether like a Ting piece." Hence the conclusion must be that the Nan-ting of the Sung dynasty and the Shu-fu-yao of the Yuan (1279–1360) represented no points of appreciable difference.

Entering the Ming dynasty an important distinction has to be noted. Researches show that until the close of the fourteenth century hard-paste porcelain was scarcely manufactured at all in China. A few specimens rudely decorated with blue under the glaze are attributed to the Sung and Yuan keramists; but though, if their genuineness be admitted, they demonstrate that the ability to make hard-paste porcelain was not wanting in those early days, they at the same time prove that, comparatively speaking, little care was bestowed on its manufacture. From the Yung-lo era (1403–1424) of the Ming dynasty, however, not only did hard-paste porcelain become one of the choice products of Ching-tê-chên, but also it reached a stage of expert manufacture incompatible with any hypothesis of sudden development or newly acquired knowledge. H'siang says that the white Yung-lo porcelain was made after the Yuan Shu-fu-yao, itself an indistinguishable reproduction of the Sung Ting-yao. It might be concluded, therefore, that the Yung-lo ware also belongs to the soft-paste variety. But here precisely the connoisseur has to make a distinction. Though from the Yung-lo era