As far as our present knowledge of the subject permits us to see, there is nothing in the pre-Han pottery to attract the collector. It will only interest him remotely and for antiquarian reasons, and he will prefer to look at it in museum cases rather than allow it to cumber his own cabinets. With the Han pottery it is otherwise. The antiquarian interest, which is by no means to be underestimated, is now supplemented by æsthetic attractions caught from the general artistic impetus which stirred the arts of this period of national greatness. Not that we must expect to find all the refinements of Han art mirrored in the pottery of the time. Chinese ceramic art was not yet capable of adequately expressing the refinements of the painter, jade carver, and bronze worker. But even with the somewhat coarse material at his disposal the Han potter was able to show his appreciation of majestic forms and appropriate ornament, and to translate, when called upon, even the commonplace objects of daily use into shapes pleasant to the eye. In a word, the ornamental possibilities of pottery were now realised, and the elements of an exquisite art may be said to have made their appearance. From a technical point of view, the most significant advance was made in the use of glaze. Though supported by negative evidence only, the theory that the Chinese first made use of glaze in the Han period is exceedingly plausible.[17] In the scanty references to earlier wares in ancient texts no mention of glaze appears, and, indeed, the severe simplicity of the older pottery is so emphatically urged that such an embellishment as glaze would seem to have been almost undesirable. The idea of glazing earthenware, if not evolved before, would now be naturally suggested to the Chinese by the pottery of the Western peoples with whom they first made contact about the beginning of the Han dynasty. Glazes had been used from high antiquity in Egypt, they are found in the Persian bricks at Susa and on the Parthian coffins, and they must have been commonplace on the pottery of Western Asia two hundred years before our era. [Illustration: Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Plate 2.--Han Pottery. Fig. 1.--Vase, green glazed. Height 14 inches. _Boston Museum._ Fig. 2.--Vase with black surface and incised designs. Height 16 inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Fig. 3.--Vase with designs in red, white and black pigments. Height 11½ inches. _British Museum._ Fig. 4.--"Granary urn," green glazed. Height 12 inches. _Peters Collection._]