Author: W. G. Gulland

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2016-08-03

Total Pages: 626

ISBN-13: 9781333133030

Excerpt from Chinese Porcelain, Vol. 2 IN this, as in the first volume, no attempt will be made to penetrate into the past beyond the Ming period. Content ing ourselves with the Chinese porcelain to be found here in England, the commencement, to be sure of the date and so start on firm ground, must of necessity be 'with the historic Trenchard and Warham bowls - that is, 1506 (see p. But even thus restricting ourselves, there is a long road of some four hundred years to travel down to the present time. Fol lowing the Chinese method, we find this period divided between two dynasties (roughly speaking, one hundred and forty years belonging to the Ming and two hundred and sixty to the Tsing), which are again subdivided into reigns - some long and some short; but these we must adopt as the measure of our whereabouts, taking the nien - hao, when existent and seemingly reliable, as a guide in the chronological arrange ment of our china. Beyond these date-marks we are very much at the mercy of the somewhat hazy records of Chinese historians and the information collected by the worthy Jesuit fathers, which, notwithstanding all their care, does not seem to have been always exactly correct; so that of necessity, when not helped by family history, we must trust in great measure to our eyesight, seeking for guidance in any change we may find in the quality of the porcelain or glaze, in the shapes of the various vessels, in the style of decoration, or colour of the pigments employed, with any other such aid we can avail ourselves of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.