402 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



TING-YAO. 



Ting-yao, or porcelain of Tingchou, was manufactured originally in 

 the district of that name in Chihli province, near the present depart- 

 ment of Ohengtiug. It was known as Pei-ting or Northern Tiug 

 (960-1126), in contradistinction to the Nan-ting or Southern Tiug, pro- 

 duced at Hangchou after the retreat of the court southwards before 

 the advancing Mongols in 1127. The former was the more highly 

 ])rized, and the finest specimens of this ware were those produced, it is 

 said, during the period Chengho (1111 to 1117) and Hsiianho (1L19 to 

 1125). In color they were brilliant white, purple or black; and though 

 the Ko-liuyaolan (a work treating of antiquities, completed in 1387), as 

 quoted in the T^aoshuo, or Treatise on Porcelain, from which the au- 

 thors translated by M. Julien derive most of their iuformation regarding 

 the ceramics of earlier dynasties, gives as the test of Tingchow porce- 

 lain " the purity of its white color and brilliancy of its glaze," it is evi- 

 dent that the connoisseur Hsiang Tzu ching experienced a stronger 

 affection for his '^ beautiful purple glaze, uniformly brilliant and trans- 

 parent, resembling the tint of ripe grapes or of the aubergine (egg- 

 plant)" and his black, than he did for the white glaze, though it were 

 in his own words " uniformly lustrous and translucent, like mutton-fat 

 or fine jade." Both the purple and black varieties were far rarer than 

 the white. " I have seen," says the collector, " hundreds of specimens 

 of the white, scores of purple-brown, but the black is extremely rare, 

 and I have only seen the one specimen I have described in my whole 

 life" — and he then had at least one of his specimens more than fifty 

 years. It is, I think, in this rarity of the purple and black glazes that 

 the explanation of the dictum above quoted is to be found, and prob- 

 ably they were unknown to its authors. The varieties mentioned in 

 the Kolm-yao-lan as inferior to the white do not include these colors, 

 and seem to result from impure clay or defective glaze. 



The same work (the Ku-lmyao-lan) says that one of the signs of the 

 genuineness of this ware was the presence of marks on it like tears. This 

 probably means granulations, for it is explained that these marks were 

 caused by the manner in which the enamel was thrown upon the white 

 paste. Specimens having ornamental designs engraved in the paste 

 were the best, though the plain or unornamonted were also highly 

 esteemed ; the second-class consisted of such as had the ornamentation! 

 worked into the enamel, and a third of such as had the decoration 

 printed or pressed upon them with a mold, the ornaments chiefly used 

 being the Chinese peony or Poeonia moutan, the Tisilan-ts^ao or Hemero- 

 calUsfulva, and the flying fenghuang (Phoenix). In Hsiang Tzu-ching's 

 catalogue, however, eleven specimens, all undoubtedly of the finest 

 quality— six of the white glaze, four of the purple, and one of the 

 black — are described, into the ornamentation of no one of which enters 

 either of these so-called " usual " patterns ; the d^Qoration in every case. 



