Makers › Master Craftsmen
He Chou
Sui craftsman of Sogdian descent who copied Persian brocade, imitated glass in green porcelain, and built the Liao River bridge and the portable Liuhe fortress
A craft workshop centres on a potter's wheel holding a tall celadon vase, amid racks of red lacquer boxes, an embroidery frame with a floral design, shelves of celadon ware, carved wooden panels and stacked logs, while one craftsman works at a table and another stands at a glowing kiln.
He Chou, courtesy name Guilin, was a nephew of the Sui chancellor of the national academy He Tuo; his grandfather was a merchant from the Western Regions who settled at Pi in Shu, and his father was a jade carver. Taken to Chang'an as a boy after Jiangling fell in 554, he entered office under the Northern Zhou. He was famously ingenious: when Persia sent Emperor Wen a robe of gold-thread brocade, He Chou's copy outdid the original, and since the art of making glass had long been lost, he imitated it in green-glazed porcelain that could not be told from the real thing. Under Emperor Yang he designed carriages and regalia, threw a bridge across the Liao River in two days during the Korean war, and built the Liuhe city, a wooden fortress that could be assembled overnight. After the Sui fell he was minister of works under Yuwen Huaji and Dou Jiande, and the Tang made him deputy director of construction.
Life and times
Dates c. 547 CE–death unknown