TING YAO.--In the Ting yao of the Sung dynasty, as in the case of the contemporaneous celadon and crackle wares, we have the oldest type of an important class of porcelain. The earlier specimens have served more than once as models for famous potters of Ming and later times. It was probably at Ting-chou, a town in the province of Chihli, to the south-west of Pekin, that a brilliant white porcelain was first successfully made by the Chinese, possibly as early as the time of the Tang dynasty; and the name of Ting yao has remained associated with all pure white wares of a certain quality, even though made at other places. As in the case of the celadon porcelain, the decoration, if any, was either in low relief or incised in the paste; but in opposition to many of the other wares we have mentioned, the Ting porcelain seems from the first to have been made from a paste of great fineness, its translucency was at times considerable, and the patterns were engraved or moulded with much delicacy. The design when engraved is scarcely visible unless the vessel is held up to the light. The specimens of Ting ware that survive date probably from Mongol or from Ming times. The British Museum possesses a remarkable collection of these Ting bowls and plates. A pair of very thin pure white shallow bowls are noticeable as having in the centre an inscription finely engraved in minute characters under the glaze. It is the nien-hao or year-mark of the Emperor Yung-lo (1402-1424), the first great name among the emperors of the Ming dynasty. This is perhaps the earliest date-mark with any pretentions to genuineness that has been found on the Chinese porcelain in our collections. The decoration, in this case, is formed by a five-clawed dragon faintly engraved in the paste. These bowls are specimens of the _feng_ or ‘flour’ Ting ware (also known as _Pai_ or ‘white’ Ting), but most of the Ting plates in the same collection are of quite another kind of ware, which has a surface like that of a European soft-paste porcelain--this the Chinese know as the _Tu-Ting_ or earthy Ting. This latter ware has in fact a soft lead glaze covering a hard body, and must therefore have required two firings, the first to thoroughly bake the paste, and a second at a lower temperature to melt the glaze on to it. Some of the specimens of this _Tu-Ting_ in the British Museum are said to date from Sung times. I do not know what is the authority for the use of a lead glaze in China at so early a date. Many of these plates have certainly a great appearance of age, but this antique look is due in some measure to the ‘weathering’ of the soft glazes on the exposed surfaces. This weathering has brought into prominence the very graceful decoration of lotus-flowers, but the surface is often discoloured by stains as of some oily matter which has apparently found its way under the glaze. The copper bands with which the edges of many of these plates