ioo Beginnings of Porcelain 



individual; but it was a slow and gradual process of finding, groping, 

 and experimenting, the outcome of the united exertions of several cen- 

 turies and generations. We clearly observe a rising development of 

 porcelain from the T'ang to the Sung, Yuan, and Ming periods, till the 

 high perfection of the ware culminates in the K'ang-hi era. It is there- 

 fore logical to assume that preceding the age of the Sui (590-617) there 

 was a primitive stage of development which ultimately resulted in the 

 T'ang porcelain. This primeval porcelanous product was hitherto 

 unknown, but, as demonstrated by the researches of Mr. Nichols, its 

 existence is now proved in the nine vessels figured on Plates I and III-X, 

 with analogous specimens in the Boston Fine Arts Museum, the Freer 

 collection, and the British Museum. The tentative attributions 

 "T'ang" and "Sung" (p. 82) were based only on isolated cases, and 

 ventured as personal impressions; they were not grounded on the fact 

 of analytic study. The Han tradition of ceramic forms had completely 

 died out under the T'ang and Sung, to give way to more graceful and 

 pleasing shapes partially conceived under Iranian and Indian influences. 

 As has been shown, the objects in question decidedly breathe the spirit 

 of Han art in forms and decorative motives. There is good circumstan- 

 tial evidence in the case of the jug on Plate I, discovered in the same 

 grave with a Han cast-iron stove, and in that of the pan-liang coins of 

 the Boston jar. Nevertheless I am not convinced that we are entitled 

 to assign these vessels to the Later Han dynasty within its strict chrono- 

 logical boundaries (a.d. 25-220), as the predominant bulk of the kiln- 

 products turned out under the Han was common glazed and unglazed 

 pottery {wa ~£L) } Moreover, the new term ts'e 3e£, applied to porce- 

 lanous ware, does not yet occur in the contemporaneous records of the 

 Han, at least such an occurrence has not yet been proved (see p. 102); 

 and this is the main reason which prompts me to the opinion that the 

 pottery in question was manufactured in post-Han times, say, roughly, 

 under the earlier Wei (220-264), or toward the middle or in the latter 

 part of the third century a.d. 2 From a purely philological point of view, 



1 This is the term employed for the burial pottery of the period in the Han 

 Annals (Hou Han shu, Ch. 16, p. 3). It is therefore out of the question that the 

 new term ts'e, as stated by Hobson (I. c, Vol. I, p. 141, note), should refer to the 

 glazed pottery of the Han. Credit must be given also to the Chinese for their 

 correct feeling for their own language and their own antiquities: the present-day 

 Chinese style the glazed Han pottery liu-li wa (accordingly, with the same term 

 as employed in the Han Annals), while the term Han ts'e is applied to the porce- 

 lanous ware here described. In this case, Chinese feeling signifies a hundred times 

 more than all the hair-splitting and pedantic subtleties of European sinologues. 



1 It is curious that this result agrees with the opinion of Palladius (Chinese- 

 Russian Dictionary, Vol. II, p. 343), who held that the output of porcelain took 

 its beginning from the Tsin dynasty (263-420). 



