396 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



THE FIVE DYNASTIES, 907 TO 959. 



To the T'aug succeeded the epoch of the five dynasties, all of them 

 short-lived and uaining themselves successors to some oue of the more 

 important dynasties that had preceded them. 



Under one of these, the Posterior Chou, during the reign of the 

 Emperor Shih-tsung (954 to 959), a celebrated porcelain, far superior to 

 any yet x>roduced, was manufactured in the district of Pien, the present 

 department of K'aifeng, in Honan province. It is described as being 

 sky-blue in color, of brilliant surface, thin as paper, and giving out a 

 clear musical sound when struck, the only defect being that the base 

 was apt to be disfigured by the remains of the coarse sand on which the 

 vessel had rested in the furnace, and which had become attached to it 

 during the process of baking. The color was adopted in obedience to 

 an imperial order that porcelain intended for palace use should thence- 

 forward be " as blue as the clear sky after rain." This porcelain, which 

 was consequently termed Yil-yao, " Imperial porcelain," and after the 

 accession of the succeeding dynasty Ch^ai-yao, Ch'ai porcelain (Ch'ai 

 being the Emperor's family name), was very highly prized, and becom- 

 ing in subsequent years, owing to its delicate make, exceedingly rare, 

 the smallest fragments were treasured as cap ornaments or necklace 

 pendants. Porcelain, blue in color and with the characters "blue as 

 the clear sky after rain" stamped in the glaze, is at the present time to 

 be obtained in China. It is scarcely necessary to state, however, that 

 such specimens do not date from the time of Shih-tsung; on the contrary, 

 they are of quite modern manufacture. Already in the sixteenth cent- 

 ury Ilsiang Tzuching writes in the preface to his catalogue, " In the 

 present day men search for a fragment of this porcelain without being 

 able to find one, and declare it to be but a phantom." * 



EARLIEST POaCELAIN EXTANT DATES FROM SUNG DYNASTY. 



In truth, the description which has been attempted of the varieties 

 of porcelain hitherto enumerated possesses merely a historical interest. 

 No specimens manufactured prior to the advent of the Sung dynasty 

 have survived to the present day, and even of the Sung productions the 

 finer kinds have entirely disappeared. Such specimens as have weathered 

 the storms and dangers of the subsequent eight centuries are, so far as I 

 am aware, only celadons of considerable solidity — chiefly Lungch'iiiau 

 or Chiinchow ware— or small pieces of no great fineness. Three cent- 

 uries ago even the finest varieties were already scarce, as is evident 



a Venus basiu," i. e., a Venice basin. It may remain a question whether Majolica, 

 exported by way of Venice, was called China from a supposed resemblance to oriental 

 porcelain, or whether the wares alluded to by Florio were in fact oriental. Minsheu, 

 in his Spanish dictionary (1599), gives " Porcellana, a kinde of earthen vessell painted ; 

 costly fruit dishes of fine earth, painted "—quoted in Marryat's History of Pottery and 

 Porcelain, p. 242. 

 *Bushell : Chinese porcelain before the present dynasty, p. 72. 



