Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early waresHobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
History
Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares
Hobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
Porcelain, Chinese; Pottery, Chinese
Plate 53 illustrates a beautiful vase in the Eumorfopoulos Collection
which belongs to a cognate group. It has a buff stoneware body, the
ornament is outlined in relief, and the glazes which fill the outlines are
very similar to those of our main group, though some of the colours are
more transparent and glassy and wanting in the solidity of the latter.
The chrysanthemum handles are a frequent feature of the vases of this
class, of which a notable instance is in the Salting Collection. Plate 54
illustrates another vase of similar kind, but with lotus handles, lotus
designs, and a fine turquoise ground. Of the same type, but less rare,
are certain wide-mouthed jars, bowls, and flower pots with bold floral
designs, lotuses, etc., outlined in fillets of clay and filled with the
same kinds of glaze, the background now turquoise and now aubergine
(Plate 58, Fig. 1). The base is usually washed over with a thin purplish
brown. These several types were copied in the Japanese Kishiu pottery
in the nineteenth century, and though the copies are rarely difficult
to distinguish by the eye alone the Japanese glazes (particularly the
aubergine) will be found on handling to have a peculiar moist and rather
sticky surface. Though no doubt of Ming origin, it is extremely probable
that the manufacture of the Chinese bowls and flower pots of this class
continued into the last dynasty.
Fig. 2 of Plate 56 exemplifies another kind of pottery with fine white
body like pipeclay, and usually with sharply moulded designs in antique
bronze style and in the bronze forms of beakers and four-legged incense
burners. The glaze is usually leaf green, but it often breaks out into
a frothy grey scum, such as is seen on some of the Canton and Yi-hsing
glazed pottery. It is a common practice to label these wares as T´ang, but
I am inclined to place them in a much more recent period (seventeenth or
eighteenth century), and to locate them among the miscellaneous Kuangtung
wares, pending further information on the subject.
There are other specimens with a somewhat similar white and relatively
soft body material, not glazed but stained with a brownish black dressing
of clay, and somewhat recalling bronze. These are usually vases of
elegant, well-moulded form, such as Plate 56, Fig. 3, and they are often
marked _Nan hsiang t´ang_.[425] They are, no doubt, of relatively modern
make.
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