CHAPTER XI

THE PORCELAIN OF KOREA AND OF THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA

KOREA

The self-contained culture of the Middle Kingdom spread at an early time to the less advanced and more or less tributary countries that surrounded it: on the south to the confused complex of states that are conveniently grouped together as Indo-China; on the north to Korea; and on the east, or more accurately on the north-east, to Japan. To these islands, however, the Chinese civilisation for the most part spread by way of Korea, and as this was in a measure the route taken in the case of the potter’s art, it may be well to deal first with the great northern peninsula.

The Chinese claim to have conquered and even incorporated Korea as long ago as the Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.), and even before that time the country had been overrun by the Japanese. The latter people have at all times presented themselves to the Koreans as ruthless conquerors and pirates, and indeed they succeeded during their last great expedition at the end of the sixteenth century in sweeping the country so bare that to this day its poverty and the low state of its artistic culture is generally attributed to this gigantic razzia from which the country never recovered. And yet Korea has always taken a place in Japanese estimation second only to China as a source of their artistic and practical knowledge, if not of their literature and philosophy; and this is especially the case with regard to the potter’s craft--the technical part of it above all. Time and again do we hear of famous Korean potters, or even of whole families and tribes, being brought over and set to work by the local Japanese ruler either with the materials they brought with them, or with the clays and glazes that their experience enabled them to discover in their new homes.

We need not, therefore, be surprised to find that after the wonders of Japan had been laid open to the admiration of the West, the greatest hopes were entertained of finding artistic treasures at least as valuable in the great peninsula to the west which still remained a forbidden land. Failing direct evidence of this wealth, it became the habit to attribute to Korea any Oriental ware, old or new, of which the origin was unknown. This tendency was taken advantage of by more than one enterprising dealer, and when at a later time the country was in a measure thrown open, cases of gorgeously decorated Japanese ware, brand-new from Yokohama or Nagasaki, were sent round by way of Chemulpo, the port of the Korean capital, so that their Korean origin could be guaranteed. Long before this, the home of an important group of Japanese porcelain, that now generally known as ‘Kakiyemon,’ had been found by Jacquemart in Korea. Now that of late years these various fallacies and _supercheries_ have been exposed, and that the extreme poverty of the land in artistic work of any kind has been demonstrated, we may perhaps see a tendency to an undue depreciation of the artistic capabilities of the country in former days. We must at any rate remember that the Japanese experts, who are in the best position to know, have always maintained that the Koreans in the sixteenth century were possessed of the secret of enamelling in colour upon porcelain, or, at all events, that they were acquainted with the coloured glazes of the _demi grand feu_, and that so good an authority as Captain Brinkley has accepted, as of Korean origin, specimens of enamelled ware still existing in Japanese collections.

Meantime we must be contented with the scanty examples of pottery, stoneware, and porcelain that have been actually brought home from Korea, and among these pieces we must discriminate between the wares of native manufacture and the porcelain that had been imported from China, either overland by way of Niu-chuang or across the Gulf of Petchili from the ports of Shantung. Of late years many specimens have been collected, chiefly at Seoul, the capital, especially by members of the various foreign legations, and some of these have found their way into European museums.[109]

Apart from some small pieces of modern blue and white and enamelled wares, undoubtedly of true porcelain, but very rough in execution and poor in colour, which are said to be of local manufacture, we find:--

1. A plain white ware often showing signs of age, but apparently in no way differing from the ivory-white ware of Fukien. Japanese experts, however, claim to distinguish pieces of Korean origin. Such specimens are much valued in Japan, and some are said to have been brought back after the great expedition at the end of the sixteenth century. We find also specimens of a heavy white ware, with decoration in a high relief, which is undoubtedly of native origin. At Sèvres is a large white vase, with dragons in relief, brought from Seoul.

2. Celadon porcelain, of many types. Of this ware there are many specimens in our museums. At Sèvres we find two bowls of a fine rich tint of olive green, presented by the King of Korea to the late President Carnot ‘as the most valuable of the ancient productions of his poor country.’ In the same collection may be seen a case full of important specimens brought back in 1893 by M. de Plancy, the French diplomatic agent at Seoul. Among them are some large rude celadon vases, one with some attempts at blue decoration under the glaze. In the British Museum are several celadon bowls, some with moulded floral patterns in relief. Among some bowls of a greyish celadon from Korea, in the Ethnographical Museum at Dresden, I noticed some with an unglazed ring on the upper surface, pointing to a primitive method of support in the furnace, perhaps similar to that formerly employed in Siam. Dr. Bushell quotes from a Chinese work on Korea, written in the first half of the twelfth century, an account of the elaborately moulded wine-cups and vessels of all kinds made in that country. This ware is described as of a kingfisher green, but it may probably be regarded as a full-coloured variety of celadon. This interpretation is confirmed by a later Chinese work (published 1387), which distinctly says--I quote from Dr. Bushell’s translation--‘The ceramic objects produced in the ancient Korean kilns were of a greyish green colour resembling the celadon ware of Lung-chuan. There was one kind overlaid with white sprays of flowers, but this was not valued so very highly’ (_Oriental Ceramic Art_, p. 681).

3. An important class of Korean ware is formed by the coarsely crackled pieces of brownish or yellow colour, which in China would probably be classed as Ko yao. These are often roughly decorated with daubs of blue under the glaze, resembling in this some of the older pieces brought from Borneo.

4. A greyish ware, inlaid with designs of white slip, on the principle of our ‘encaustic tiles’ of the Middle Ages. This is perhaps the only original type that we can connect with Korea, and it would seem that this is the ware alluded to at the end of the quotation we have just given from an old Chinese book. This inlaid ware appears to have been greatly admired by the Japanese, for it was closely imitated in more than one district. The well-known Yatsushiro pottery, first made in the province of Higo in the seventeenth century, is distinctly a copy of this Korean model. Among the specimens at Sèvres brought home by M. de Plancy, there is a tall vase of this type cut down in the neck decorated with flying cranes in white slip. This ware, however, is not a true porcelain; at the best it is a kind of kaolinic stoneware, and the same may be said of most of the old heavy pieces brought back from Korea.

There is not much in the way of decorative design to be found on any of the varieties of Korean porcelain or stoneware that we have now described, and we may look in vain among the few ornamental _motifs_ to be found on these wares for any marked divergency from Chinese types.

SIAM AND THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA.

Under the somewhat vague heading of Indo-China we will collect a few notes upon the specimens of porcelain that have been found in the various states into which the great peninsula that stretches south between the China Sea and the Bay of Bengal is divided.

In looking through the artistic productions of all these countries, we find one marked characteristic; and that is the way in which Chinese forms and Chinese decorative _motifs_ have pushed their way in and in part replaced the old Buddhist and Brahmanistic styles.

As matters now stand, the most important for us of these states is Siam, for here we are at once brought face to face with one of the places of manufacture of the famous heavy celadon ware which in the Middle Ages was carried by Arab and Chinese traders over all the seas of the then known world. We shall have in a later chapter to come back to the question of this trade, and then we shall be able to show that the discussion as to the origin of this _martabani_ ware has been the means, as is indeed often the case in such disputes, of throwing much light on the early history of Chinese porcelain.

For the present we are only concerned with an important discovery quite recently made not far from the frontier of Siam and Pegu. Many specimens of celadon, some of the older type, have come in recent years from various parts of Indo-China. In the museum at Sèvres are some pieces of rough greyish ware, with a thick, irregularly crackled glaze, brought back in 1893 by the _Mission Fournereux_ from Siam and Cambodia; among these fragments of old celadon we find a pair of contorted bowls, fused together in the kiln, in fact undoubted ‘wasters,’ such as could only be found in the neighbourhood of the furnaces where they were fired. At the instigation of Mr. C. H. Read of the British Museum, Mr. Lyle has lately explored the remains of old potteries now hidden in deep jungle, at a place called Sawankalok, not far from the western frontier of Siam. These old kilns are situated some two hundred miles to the north of Bangkok, and about the same distance from the port of Molmein (Malmen). To show the importance of this discovery, we need only point out that near to the latter town lies the old port of Martaban, which played so important a part in the mediæval trade of the Arabs, and from which, doubtless, the name of Martabani, by which celadon ware has always been known in the Mohammedan East, is derived. Among the many fragments brought back by Mr. Lyle are some which from their distinct translucency, and from the whiteness and the conchoidal fracture of the paste, may be unhesitatingly classed as true porcelain. The colour of the glaze varies from a prevailing greyish green to a fine turquoise tint in a few specimens. That the ware was made on the spot is proved by the presence of many defective pieces--‘wasters’ that had been thrown away--as well as by the numerous conical props (for the support of the ware in the kiln) found mixed with the fragments. On these tall, nozzle-shaped props the plates and bowls were supported in an inverted position. It is by this unusual method of support that we may account for the fact that the glaze covers the _whole_ of the lower surface--so exceptional an occurrence in the case of porcelain--and at the same time for the absence of the glaze from a ring-like portion of the upper surface. We may note that a similar distribution of the glaze is found occasionally on large plates of the old heavy ware brought from other countries; of this there are notable examples in the museum at Gotha (see p. 72). The ground in these Siamese specimens has assumed where exposed, but there only, the deep red so admired by the Chinese in the old Lung-chuan ware. The paste, in many of the examples, has been moulded in low relief in the characteristic lotus-leaf pattern, while on a few pieces there is a rough decoration in greenish black under the glaze. All remembrance of these old kilns has completely passed away, and at the present day the local market is supplied with a rough stoneware brought overland from Yunnan.[110]

The porcelain now found in Siam, of which many specimens have been lately brought to Europe, is of a very different character. This is the highly decorated enamelled ware which may be classed with the _famille rose_ from the prevalence of the _rouge d’or_ among the enamels. This ware, none of which can be earlier than the middle of the eighteenth century, is certainly made in China, but the presence in the decoration of

[Illustration: _PLATE XXII._ CHINESE]

certain peculiar Buddhist types makes it rather difficult to believe that the enamelling was in all cases executed in Canton. It is true that in the colours, and in the general style of the decoration, we are often reminded of the well-known Cantonese enamels on copper. The white surface of the ground is, for the most part, entirely hidden by a floral decoration; but amid this, on medallions surrounded by tongues of flame, we find centaur-like monsters with human heads, above which rise almond-shaped _nimbi_. From the top of the cover of the hemispherical bowls--the commonest form--rises a knob in the shape of the Buddhist jewel. The enamel of this ware appears to scale off readily, as if from imperfect firing. The prevailing colours are a deep red for the ground, and a bright green relieved with white and yellow for the design (PL. XXII.). While the finer specimens, as we have already said, remind us of the Canton enamels, others suggest rather, in the scheme of colour and decoration, the painted and lacquered bowls of India and Ceylon. In the Indian Museum at South Kensington may be seen an exceptionally fine collection of this Sinico-Siamese porcelain, lent by Signor Cardu, and a good opportunity is here provided for comparing its decoration with that on the rough earthenware from Ceylon and various parts of India which is exhibited in adjacent cases.

A coarse kind of porcelain is made in Annam. At Sèvres are some cups presented by the envoy from that kingdom. The rude pattern of bamboos painted in blue, _sous couverte_, on a greyish paste, does not give an exalted idea of Annamese civilisation.

In Japan we sometimes find specimens of a somewhat rough but picturesquely decorated ware, hardly a true porcelain, I think, which from the country of its origin is known as Kochi. From the nature and colour of its glaze it may be compared to some of the old Chinese wares of the _demi grand feu_, and again, in certain points, to the earlier types of the Japanese porcelain of Kaga and Imari. Kochi has been identified with Cochin-China, but as the geographical ideas of the Japanese as to foreign states were not very definite--derived as they were from the Chinese geographers of the Ming period--we may perhaps be justified in looking further north for the source of this ware, either in Tonquin or in some part of Kuang-tung, the southernmost province of China.[111]