A Sketch Of The History Of Ceramic Art In China: With A Catalogue Of The Hippisley Collection Of Chinese Porcelains

Author(s): Alfred Edward Hippisley
Category: Ceramics
Publisher: Washington: Government Printing Office
Publish year: 1902
ISBN: 9678000000088
Number of Pages: 159

For such information as we possess regarding the history of the ceramic art in China, we have till recently been chiefly indebted to the labors of the famous French sinologue, M. Stanislas Julien, who, under the title of L'Histoire et la Fabrication de la Porcelaine Chinoise, translated, and published in 1866, the History of the Manufactory of Chingte-chen (a small town in Kiangsi province, but for centuries the most important seat of the Chinese Porcelain industry), a work written by a local magistrate in 1815 from older documents, and to the valua- ble letters from the same town written in 1712 and 1722 by the Jesuit missionary Pere d'EntrecoUes, the priest in charge there, which have been published in the collection of Lettres ^difiantes et curieuses. Within the past three years, however, very valuable additional light has been shed upon this subject by the labors of two gentlemen who are at once collectors and Chinese scholars, S. W. Bushell, M. D., physician to H. B. M. legation, Pekin, and F. Hirth, Ph. D., a member of the imperial maritime customs service of China. Doctor Bushell has been fortunate enough to secure from among the dispersed library of the Prince of I the manuscript of a descriptive catalogue (of which native experts seeno reason to doubt the authenticity), with illustrations painted in water-color, of eighty-two celebrated specimens of old porcelain seen in the collections of noted connoisseurs or possessed b}^ the author him- self, one Hsiang Yiian-p'ien (styled Tzu-ching), a native of Tsui-li, an Mn 1887 Mr. A. E. Hippisley, a commissioner of the imperial maritime customs pervice of China, deposited in the U. S. National Musemn a large and important col- lection of Chinese porcelains, with the understanding that the Museum should print a descriptive catalogue, which it did in the Annual Keport for 1887-88. The edition of this catalogue having long ago been exhausted, and the demand for it having rec^ently increased, owing to the current interest in all matters relating to China, it is now republished with emendations and with the addition of a number of platea illustrating type examples from the various provinces represented.

Start Free Trial or Sign In to read books.

A Sketch Of The History Of Ceramic Art In China: With A Catalogue Of The Hippisley Collection Of Chinese Porcelains

Table of Contents: