THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 389 



the present century, European archsBologists were inclined to believe 

 that an antiquity might be conceded to Chinese porcelain almost equal 

 to the wildest claims of Chinese historians.* Some small porcelain bot- 

 tles, decorated with flowers and inscriptions in Chinese, having been 

 brought to Europe by M. Rosellini, who stated that they had been found 

 in undisturbed Egyptian tombs dating from at least 1800 B. C, it was 

 concluded that the manufacture of porcelain must have existed in China 

 anterior to that date. M. Julien discovered, however, that the inscrip- 

 tions upon these bottles were written in the grass or cursive character, 

 a style of writing not introduced till B. C. 48 ; and later Mr. (afterwards 

 Sir Walter) Medhurst, then an interpreter in the Hongkong government 

 service, was able with Chinese aid to identify the inscriptions with 

 quotations from poems written during the T'ang dynasty, and later than 

 the seventh century of the Christian era. Any title based upon these 

 bottles, which had evidently been surreptitiously introduced into the 

 tombs by fraudulent Arabs, for so great an antiquity in the manufacture 

 of Chinese porcelain, thus fell to the ground. Indeed, M. du Sartel, 

 who has publisbed an exhaustive work on '• La Porcelaine dela Chine" 

 argues that the manufacture of true j)orcelain in China did not com- 

 mence till some centuries later than the period assigned to it by M. 

 Julien, who dates it from the reign of the Han dynasty and somewhere 

 between the years B. C. 185 and A. D. 87. This point will be considered 

 when we come to the reign of the T'ang dynasty, the period in which M. 

 du Sartel claims true porcelain was first made. 



HAN DYNASTY, B. C. 202 TO A. D. 220. 



It is during the Han dynasty that mention is first made of Tz'-u, the 

 Chinese designation of porcelain. It was then made at Hsinp'ing, a 

 district in the state of Ch'en, and corresponding with the modern Huain- 

 ing district, in Honan province. 



WEI DYNASTY, 221 to 265. 



Under the Wei dynasty, which from A. D.221 to 265 enjoyed, with the 

 dynasties of Wu and of Han of Szechucn, divided supremacy as rulers 

 of China, manufactories are mentioned at several places in the depart- 

 ment of Hsi-an, in Sheusi province (the products of which were known 

 as Kuanchung-yao), and at Loyang, in Honan province (products termed 

 Loching-t'ao), as supplying porcelain for the imperial palace. 



CHIN DYNASTY, 266 to 419. 



Under the Chin dynasty (A. D. 266 to 419) another manufactory is 

 mentioned as existing in the present department of Wenchou, in Cheh- 

 kiang province, which produced porcelain (known as Tung-ou t'ao) of a 

 blue (or possibly celadon) color which was held in high esteem. 



'Rosellini: I MonumeiitL dell' Egitto, 1834. Sir John Diivis : Tlie Chinese, 1836. 

 J. Gardener Wilkinson: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 1837. 



