The name of the town is said to have been taken from that of the Sung Emperor King Teh (1,004-1,008 AD.), though the manufacture of por-there actually goes back a ood deal earlier, probably (0 the early "Tang Dynasty, about the seventh or. eighth centuries. The height of its artistic prowess and its corresponding prosperity was reached during the reigns of the three great Manchu Emperors: Kang Hsi, Yung Cheng and Chien Lung.
By the beginning of the 19th cenury the quality of the porcelain had begun to fall off, partly owing to the fact that the claypits in the nelghouting hills had become exhausted, and parily because the later emperors had not the same appreciation of art 4 their great predecessors. 'The nal blow was given to the industry in the "Afties of last century when' the town was taken by the Taipings and almost entirely destroyed, never properly recovered from the blow and the highest form of art
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.