NOT to know something of Chinese porcelains, their history and their periods, is to be denied a pleasurable interest. The old porcelains of China are the ancestors of all china-wares of the world, and never have the finest antique fabriques of the Celestial Kingdom been surpassed or even equaled in beauty and texture.

The potter’s craft, as we all know, had its origin in the dim ages of the past. Even the discovery of true porcelain must be dated so far back that we have no authentic record of the era of its origin.

The literature of China ascribes the invention of true porcelain to some twenty-five hundred years before Christ, but we cannot be certain that the art of porcelain-making was known and practised until, perhaps, after the seventh century. While Chinese literature of the early periods abounds in references to porcelain, we have not a single authentic dated piece of the very early dynasties. It seems plausible to advance the theory that true porcelain was an invention or discovery of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.). The Japanese writer Okakura-Kakuzo has suggested that to the alchemists of the Han dynasty came accidentally the discovery of the wonderful porcelain glaze. The literature by Chinese authors of the T’ang dynasty is rich in references to porcelain. The poet Tu (803-852), for instance, says:

The white bowls of Hsing-chou in Chihli and the blue bowls of Yuen-chou in Che-kiang were highly esteemed and celebrated in song and story. Their resonance of tone was such that musicians were said to have utilized them.

The Arabs and Chinese were conducting a flourishing trade during the eighth and ninth centuries. To Soleyman, one of the early Arabian traders who wrote an account of his journeyings, we owe the first mention of China in the literature of the world outside the empire. “In China,” said he, “they have a very fine clay which they manufacture vases from, as transparent as glass; water is seen through them.” Bushell (“Chinese Art,” vol. II) tells us that in the time of the Emperor Shi Tsung (954-959) of the brief Posterior Chou dynasty established at K’ai-fÊng-fu prior to the Sung dynasty, an imperial rescript ordered porcelain “as blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper and as resonant as a musical stone of jade.”

All the porcelains of the times we have referred to seem long since to have disappeared and the only knowledge of them which we have to-day is through the literature of their contemporary writers. The Sung dynasty (960-1280), the Yuan dynasty (1280-1367), and the Ming dynasty (1368-1643) open up to us surer knowledge as specimens of the time are available to students. The porcelains of the Sung and Yuan dynasties may be classed together. The ceramic production (yao) made in the province of Honan in the town now called Ju-chou-fu—a Sung dynasty porcelain therefore designated as Ju-Yao—stands famous for the qualities of its blues, which Chinese poets assure us rival the blue blossoms of the Vitex incisa, the Chinese “Sky Blue Flower.”

The imperial ware of the Sung dynasty was the Kuan Yao (two Chinese words signifying “official ceramic kiln”). Then there was the Yo Yao porcelain, the early crackled ware; and the Ting Yao, a porcelain having a delicate resonant body. This seems to be the most commonly met with among the wares of the Sung period. The Lung-ch’Üan Yao of the Sung wares is the famed Celadon ware made in the province of Che-kiang. The Celadon ware of this dynasty is distinguished by its onion-sprout green color. The Celadon wares of later periods turn more either to greyish greens or to sea-green hues.

The ChÜn yao faience was the product of ChÜn-chou, now YÜ-chou, a town of the province of Honan. Marvelous indeed were its glazes of unsurpassed brilliancy and beauty of color. The transmutation flambÉs were especially notable.

In the reign of Yung Cheng (1723) the emperor sent a list of ChÜn-chou pieces to be reproduced by the imperial potteries in Chung-te-chen, from which (record of this being extant) we are able to glean some knowledge of the great variety of glaze colors of the earlier period. In this list appeared crimson-rose, japonica-pink, sky-blue, plum-color, dark purple, millet-yellow, flambÉs, etc. Early in the eighteenth century all these glazes and colors were reproduced with marvelous skill, but the new white body was probably infinitely superior to the early body.

The Chien Yao Ware of the Sung dynasty was produced in Fu-kien province, where lustrous black-enameled tea ceremonial cups were manufactured. These were dappled with specks of white resembling the effect of hare’s fur and partridge breasts. The Japanese treasure these pieces, to which they have given the name “Hare-fur Cups,” above almost any other varieties of Chinese porcelain.

We now come to the Ming dynasty, and in the reign of Wan-li (1573-1619) the art of making and decorating porcelain had so advanced that native contemporaries were fond of declaring there was nothing that could not be made of the porcelain. The cobalt blues came into favor in this period, and it is also the time of the famed “Mohammedan blue.” European and American collectors have given a great deal of attention to the blue-and-white porcelains that came in with the close of the Ming dynasty. It was between 1662 and 1722, however, that the very flower of the blue-and-white porcelain was produced. This marks the reign of K’ang Hsi.

The K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722) was the culminating one of Chinese ceramic art. Of this porcelain, Bushell says:

He also tells us porcelains of the famille verte class pervade the period while those of the famille rose class may be said to have ushered in its close. The greens that give the porcelains of the famille verte and the famille rose classes their names are indeed gem-like in their beauty. Precious, too, to the collector are the Blue-and White or the Black Hawthorn Jars of the period. Hawthorn is a misnomer, for the prunus blossom and not the Hawthorn blossom furnishes the motif of the decoration. It is interesting to note that the Prunus blossoms in the white on the blue ground crossed by white zigzag lines represents to the Oriental fancy the flowers falling on ice breaking up in the springtime.

The master quality of fine porcelain is its glaze and the glazes of old Chinese porcelains have never been surpassed. The reigns of Yung ChÊng and his celebrated son, Ch’ien Lung, who lend name to the period from 1723 to 1796, sustained the perfection of Chinese porcelain. The decadence of the art begins with the modern period, from 1796 to the present.

The marks on Chinese porcelains are various in character and come under one or more of the following divisions: marks of date, hall-marks, marks of dedication and good wishes, marks in praise of the piece of porcelain inscribed, symbols, and other pictorial marks and potters’ marks. It is not necessary here to go into the intricacies of these, but they furnish a fascinating study. This, too, is true of the designs that are to be found on the decorated pieces of Chinese porcelain. The casual observer will pick up a piece and admire or dismiss it on the judgment of the general impression it makes upon his artistic sensibilities. Not so with the connoisseur, who takes into consideration color, texture, glaze, and, quite as much as these (so far as intellectual interest is concerned), the story the design tells.

The porcelains of China, like the sword-guards of Japan, offer the native artists a vast wealth of mythological and folklore subjects. Then symbolism and occasion are closely cemented in Oriental thought, and if the collector of old Chinese porcelains finds their decoration puzzling at times in its significance, how absorbing are its unravelings!

Since the time of Queen Elizabeth the Western world has recognized the beauty and the decorative value of the porcelains of China, and at no time have they sunk in regard. Rarities are no longer likely to be found hidden away, or acquired for a posy. At the same time, the possession of a single object and some knowledge of the evolution in ceramics that led to it are interesting.