392 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



The Yileh-yao, a blue, or for the same reason as in the case of Yo-yao a 

 pale green porcehiin, much sought after from the earliest times, 

 from Yiiehchou, corresponding with the present department of 

 Chaohsing in Chehkiang province; and lastly 



The 81m-yao or Szechnmen porcelain, facile princeps among the pro- 

 ductions of that age, snow-white in color, with a clear ring, thin 

 but strong, and graceful in shape, from the city of Ta-i, in the de- 

 partment of K'iuingchou, in (present) Szechuen province. 



THE ANTIQUITY OF TRUE PORCELAIN. 



As already stated, M. du Sartel declines to admit the antiquity attrib- 

 uted by M. Julien, on the authority of the native work he translated, 

 to the production of true porcelain in China, namely, the time of the 

 Han dynasty, and somewhere between the years B. C. 185 and A, D. 87. 

 His arguments, however, are marked by strange inaccuracies. Having 

 referred the productions of Hongchou, Shouchou, Yochou, and Yiieh- 

 chou, which, as above, Chinese authors state to have been first manu- 

 factured under the T'ang dynasty, back to the Ch'in dynasty, that is, 

 to a period nearly two centuries earlier, M. du Sartel argues that the 

 remarks made in the Treatise on Tea above referred to (which, when 

 enumerating the varieties of T'ang porcelain, classilies them merely 

 according to the suitability of their colored glazes to impart an agree- 

 able tint to tea held in them) tend to show that the bowls or cups in 

 question could not have been transparent porcelain, bearing a decora- 

 tion in the colors named under the glaze, but must have been of an 

 opaque substance, covered internally with a thick colored glaze. In 

 this view he considers himself supported by the description given of the 

 Sui dynasty manufactures. This, he argues, gives an idea of trans- 

 parence, but the transparence is due merely to the use of a more vit- 

 reous composition or to a more thorough baking than had been pre- 

 viously customary, and the white color and other distinctive qualities 

 of true porcelain are only to be first found in the productions of the 

 T'ang dynasty — that is, in those productions which M. du Sartel, in 

 disregard of the statements of Chinese writers, the only authorities we 

 have to guide us, himself elects to refer to this dynasty. Secondly, he 

 argues that the porcelain manufactured under the Sui and preceding 

 dynasties is uniformly denominated t^ao, that from the latter half 

 of the T'ang dynasty, this word is replaced by the designation yao 

 which has continued in use up to the present time ; and that the change 

 in name coincides with a change in the character of the porcelain man- 

 ufactured. 



The word yao as a designation of porcelain came into general use, 

 it is true, at the commencement of the T'ang dynasty, but that fact 

 would scarcely justify the conclusion that it was designedly intro- 

 duced in order to mark a synchronous change in the character of the 



