Yuan Porcelain and Stoneware (The Faber Monographs on Pottery and Porcelain)

Faber & Faber, 1974 4to (25.5 cm), XII, 159 pp, 125 plates. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket (minor shelf-wear). "During the short period of hundred and fifty years in the 13th and 14th centuries when they ruled in China as the Yuan dynasty, the Mongols can now be seen to have acted as a catalyst there in the field of the arts. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of ceramics to which this book is devoted. In the history of Chinese ceramics the period is marked by richness of invention, both aesthetic and technical, which changed the whole direction of the art and craft. One of the most important features of the age was the impact of Near Eastern artistic influences, which became for a time a predominant stimulus for the experimentalism seen especially in the early fourteenth century. Miss Medley's aim in her book has been to see the evolution of Chinese porcelain and stoneware against the background of social change." (from the publisher's description)