144 Beginnings of Porcelain 



and brown, and still called by the Chinese liu-li wa *S J$ JL} The 

 fact that the process of glazing itself is not described in the ancient 

 texts, as pointed out by Hobson, is not of great concern. In fact, we 

 have no ancient description of pottery whatsoever; and no technical 

 treatise, if there ever was any, has survived from the Han period. The 

 subject of pottery began to interest Chinese scholars only as late as 

 the age of the Sung and Yuan; and in the same manner as the old 

 writers fail to record the evolution of porcelanous ware, they are reticent 

 as to glazing and other ceramic processes. It cannot be strongly 

 enough emphasized that our knowledge of the subject should be re- 

 constructed on the basis of actual material before our eyes, and not 

 on literary sources which are still very incompletely exploited, or on 

 philological considerations. It is unreasonable to expect also that 

 literary traditions and antiquities of China should blend into a uniform 

 and harmonious picture: neither is such the case in the archaeology of 

 Greece or Italy. We have hundreds and hundreds of Chinese antiqui- 

 ties which cannot be traced to any records, but it would be an absurd 

 procedure to disregard them simply for this reason. Monuments 

 speak their own language, and are entitled to a fair and impartial hearing 

 on their own merits. Both monuments and literature have come 

 down to us only in fragments; and while it is not necessary that one 

 department confirms the other, we must regard ourselves fortunate 

 in seeing one supplemented by the other. 2 



Owing to their lack of interest in technical matters, the notions of 

 Chinese scholars regarding liu-li are the vaguest possible. Mong 



1 A disk labelled pi-liu-li is represented on the Han bas-reliefs among the objects 

 of happy augury. No conclusions can be drawn from this design as to objects 

 made from liu-li, as the artist took the first element pi in the sense of "disk" or 

 "ring," and based his conception on this interpretation. His work represents 

 merely an art-motive, not a reality. This subject has been well expounded by 

 E. Chavannes (Mission archeologique, Vol. I, La sculpture a l'epoque des Han, 

 p. 170). 



2 There are several allusions to green-glazed Han pottery in Chinese writings. 

 One is extracted by Hobson (Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, Vol. I, p. 199) from 

 the Gazetteer of Shen-si Province, and refers to the village Lei-siang in the pre- 

 fecture of T'ung-chou, where the inhabitants sometimes dig up castaway wares, 

 archaic in shape and style, of green, deep and dark, but brilliant color, some with 

 ornaments in raised clay. The Gazetteer of the District of Hua-yang (forming 

 with the district of Ch'eng-tu the prefectural city of Ch'eng-tu, the capital of Sze- 

 ch'uan) reports (Ch. 41, p. 64), "An ancient pottery censer (~fe Jji, § j^{) is * n 

 the Kuang-fa temple (@f ££ -^jf ), outside of the city, twenty li in easterly direction. 

 It is rectangular in shape, posed on four feet, two feet five inches in length, and 

 one foot two inches in width. It is provided with lion's ears [relief designs of animal- 

 heads], and is green and glossy. According to a tradition it is an object of the Shu 

 Han period (221-264)." 



