From Samedo’s _History of China_, we learn:
“They have altogether relinquished to Europe to be served in plate, there being scarce found among them a vessel of silver of a considerable bigness, no not in the Emperor’s palace, being content to eat in porcelain, which is the only vessel in the world for neat and delightful cleanliness.... Kiamsi is famous for the Porcellane dishes (indeed the only work in the world of this kind) which are made only in one of its towns: so that all that is used in the kingdom, and dispersed through the whole world, are brought from this place: although the earth whereof they are made cometh from another place: but there only is the water, wherewith precisely they are to be wrought to come to their perfection, for if they be wrought with other water the work will not have so much glosse and lustre. In this worke there are not those mysteries that are reported of it here, neither in the matter, the form nor the manner of working; they are made absolutely of earth, but of a neat and excellent quality. They are made in the same time, and the same manner, as our earthen vessels; only they make them with more diligence and accuratenesse. The blew, wherewith they paint the porcellane, is anill, whereof they have abundance, some do paint them with vermilion, and (for the king) with yellow.”
The same traveller also notes: “The workmanship of Europe which they most admired were our clocks, but now they make of them such as are set upon tables, very good ones.”
A Jesuit father, writing from China in 1688, sheds further light on the wares that were made there and prized in Europe. He says in part:
“As for porcelain, it is such an ordinary moveable, that it is the ornament of every house; the tables, the sideboards, nay, the kitchen is cumber’d with it, for they eat and drink out of it, it is their ordinary vessel. There is likewise made huge flower-pots of it. The very architects cover roofs and make use of it sometimes to incrustate marble buildings.
“Amongst those that are most in request, there are of three different colours; some are yellow, yet though the earth be very fine, they appear more coarse than the others; and the reason is, because that colour does not admit of so fine polishing; it is used in the Emperor’s palace. Yellow is his own proper colour, which is not allowed to any person to bear; so that one may safely say, that as for the business of porcelain, the Emperor is the worst served.