Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/289

the biscuit so that the edges of the pattern are depressed and the centre appears to be in relief. This ware is a great favourite with Japanese collectors who call it Nyo-fu, according to their pronunciation of Kiang-nan, the province where it was manufactured. Like the Ting-yao, it never has any marks of date or factory.

It is necessary now to turn for a moment to the Kiang-nan workshops. The Tao-lu states that of the six factories existing at an early period in the province of Kiang-nan, five were devoted to the manufacture of white porcelain. Of these the most important was at Su-chou. It had its origin during the Sung dynasty and continued active until the end of the seventeenth century, from which time its products ceased to deserve a place among art objects. Its soft-paste porcelain, according to the Tao-lu, resembled the celebrated Ting-yao, and was in large demand, especially when genuine Ting-yao of Pechili began to grow scarce. Su-chou pieces then passed for true Ting-yao, but the author of the Tao-lu pronounces them to have been decidedly inferior. The second factory, at Sz'-chou, also began to work under the Sung, and produced soft-paste porcelain of the Ting-yao type, its quality, however, relegating it to a lower rank than that assigned to the ware of Su-chou. The third factory was at Hsuan-chou. It worked throughout the Yuan and Ming dynasties, producing soft-paste white porcelain of considerable merit. The fourth factory is that at which the potter Pêng (vide Ting-yao, Chapter III.) worked during the Yuan dynasty. Its outcome is said to have supported comparison with true Ting-yao, except that the glaze lacked lustre. Indeed, good specimens of Pêng-yao are described as bearing