In spite of all that has been written in the past on Oriental ceramics, the study is still young, and it will be long before the last word is said on the subject. Still our knowledge is constantly increasing, and remarkable strides have been made in recent years. The first serious work on Chinese porcelain was Julien's translation of the _Ching-tê Chên t´ao lu_, published in 1856. The work of a scholar who was not an expert, it was inevitably marred by misunderstanding of the material, and subsequent writers who followed blindly were led into innumerable confusions. The Franks Catalogue, issued in 1876, was one of the first attempts to classify Oriental wares on some intelligible system; but it was felt that not enough was known at that time to justify a chronological classification of the collection, and the somewhat unscientific method of grouping by colours and processes of decoration was adopted as a convenient expedient. At the end of last century Dr. S.W. Bushell revolutionised the study of Chinese porcelain by his _Oriental Ceramic Art_, a book, unfortunately, difficult to obtain, and by editing Cosmo Monkhouse's excellent _History and Description of Chinese Porcelain_. These were followed by the South Kensington Museum Handbook and by the translation and reproduction of the sixteenth century Album of Hsiang Yüan-p´ien, and later by the more important translation of the _T´ao shuo_. It would be impossible to over-estimate the importance of Bushell's pioneer work; and I hasten to make the fullest acknowledgment of the free use I have made of his writings, the more so because I have not hesitated to criticise freely his translations where necessary. The Chinese language is notoriously obscure and ambiguous, and differences of opinion on difficult passages are inevitable. In fact, I would say that it is unwise to build up theories on any translation whatsoever without verifying the critical passages in the original. For this reason I found it necessary to work laboriously through the available Chinese ceramic literature, a task which would have been quite impossible with my brief acquaintance with the language had it not been for the invaluable aid of Dr. Lionel Giles, who helped me over the difficult ground. I have, moreover, taken the precaution of giving the Chinese text in all critical passages, so that the reader may satisfy himself as to their true meaning.