130 Beginnings of Porcelain 



is no sense in speaking of dimensions with reference to a raw mineral. 

 Certainly nobody would compare the size of a mineral with a piece of 

 furniture, and its thickness with a drinking-cup. The use of the 

 word potoria demonstrates that our author, alluding to the costly 

 vessels mentioned in the previous chapter, understands drinking- 

 vessels likewise in this passage. 



Any one who has had any experience in reading Chinese texts 

 relative to pottery or porcelain will be deeply struck by a certain 

 kinship or affinity of terminology that prevails in the latter and in the 

 Plinian tradition of murrines. No statement or attribute used in 

 this text contradicts the opinion that ceramic stoneware is here in 

 question. On the contrary, some words, indeed, are as well chosen 

 as though they were directly derived from a ceramist's vocabulary, 

 and are well apt to uphold my theory. The effect of the changing 

 colors produced by the heavy glaze could not be better described than 

 by Pliny's style. Every lover of Chinese pottery who reads this pas- 

 sage intelligently will confess that he has many times had this delightful 

 experience of observing color changes and transitions, as well as the 

 rainbow iridescence which we so greatly admire in the ceramic pro- 

 ductions of the Han. Translucency as a defect is intelligible only in 

 pottery: it refers to a thin glaze that allows of the transparency of 

 the clay body. "Oily spots" {maculae pingues) is a felicitous ceramic 

 expression; likewise is "salt grains and warts." 1 



a fabriquer les celebres vases murrhins. La description quelque peu obscure que 

 Pline donne des vases murrhins . . . est entremelee de fables et elle ne s'adapte 

 parfaitement bien ni a des coupes d'agate ou de sardonyx, ni a des coupes d'ambre 

 ou de pates vitreuses, ni enfin a des coupes de jade, comme le pensent quelques 

 critiques." Leaving aside the vitreous pastes, this statement is perfectly fair. — 

 L. de Launay (Mineralogie des Anciens, Vol. I, p. 85) quotes a writer on onyx as 

 saying, that, despite the similarity of descriptions, the murrines were not of onyx 

 or sardonyx: "Si l'une ou l'autre de ces pierres avait ete le murrhinum, les Anciens 

 auraient certainement donne aux vases murrhiens, le nom de vases d'onyx ou de 

 sardonyx, au lieu qu'ils ont distingue expressement les vases murrhiens d'avec 

 ceux faits de l'une, ou de l'autre des pierres susdites." "The onyx has been proposed, 

 but our authorities plainly imply that the onyx was a material akin to but yet dis- 

 tinct from that here in question" (W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman 

 Antiquities, Vol. II, p. 182). Other speculations in regard to the murrines were 

 advanced, to the effect that they were made of a gum, or formed from shells. Others 

 referred to obsidian. Veltheim proposed Chinese soapstone. "No mineral has been 

 suggested which answers exactly to Pliny's description, and at present the problem 

 is unsolved" (Smith, /. c), — sufficient reason for assuming that Pliny's description 

 does not answer to any mineral. 



1 The sales (this is the only passage in Pliny where sal is used in the plural) 

 were presumably identical with what the Chinese ceramists praise in the Ting porce- 

 lain of the Sung period, which exhibited vestiges of tears (Julien, Histoire, p. 61); 

 those with tear-marks were even considered as genuine (Eitel, China Review, 

 Vol. X, p. 311, and Vol. XI, p. 177; Hirth, Ancient Chinese Porcelain, p. 141). 



