Chinese Pottery and Porcelian, Volume II, by R. L. Hobson, B.A.

The Imperial potteries at Ching-tê Chên were busy in the long reign of Chia Ching, grandson of Ch’êng Hua, under the supervision of one of the prefects of the circuit who took charge in place of the palace eunuch of previous reigns. Chinese accounts of the porcelain of this important period, summarised in the T’ao shuo, include passages from the late Ming and therefore almost contemporary works, the Shih wu kan chu and the Po wu yao lan. In the former we are told that the Mohammedan blue was largely used, but that the material for the “fresh red” (hsien hung)[99] was exhausted, and that the method of producing the red colour was no longer the same as of old, the potters being capable only of making the overglaze iron red called fan hung. The Po wu yao lan gives a more intimate description of the ware, and the passage[100]—the last in that work on the subject of porcelain—may be rendered as follows:—

“Chia Ching porcelain includes blue-decorated and polychrome wares of every description; but unfortunately the clay brought to the place from the neighbouring sources in Jao Chou gradually deteriorated, and when we compare these two classes of porcelain with the similar productions of the earlier periods of the dynasty the (Chia Ching) wares do not equal the latter. There are small white bowls (ou) inscribed inside with the character ch’a (tea), the character chiu (wine), or the characters tsao t’ang (decoction of dates), or chiang t’ang[101] (decoction of ginger); these are the sacrificial altar vessels regularly used by the Emperor Shih Tsung (i.e. Chia Ching), and they are called white altar cups, though in form and material they are far from equalling the Hsüan Tê vessels. The Chia Ching shallow wine cups with rimmed mouth,[102] convex centre,[103] and foot with base rim,[104] decorated outside in three colours with fish design, and the small vermilion boxes, no bigger than a “cash,” are the gems of the period. As for the small boxes beautifully painted with blue ornament, I fear that the Imperial factories of after times will not be able to produce the like. Those who have them prize them as gems.”

A few supplementary comments in the T’ao shuo further inform us that the Mohammedan blue of the Chia Ching period was preferred very dark (in contrast with the pale blue of the Hsüan Tê porcelain), that it was very lovely, and that supplies of this blue arrived providentially at the time when the “fresh red” failed[105]; and also that the supplies of earth from Ma-ts’ang were daily diminishing till they were nearly exhausted, and consequently the material of the ware was far from equalling that of the Hsüan Tê period. The T’ao lu adds practically nothing to the above statements.

Fortunately, there are still to be found a fair number of authentic specimens of Chia Ching porcelain, but before considering these in the light of the Chinese descriptions, it will be helpful as well as extremely interesting to glance at the lists of actual porcelain vessels supplied to the palace at this time. From the eighth year of this reign, the annual accounts of the palace porcelains have been preserved in the Annals of Fou-liang, from which they were copied in the provincial topographies. Two of these lists (for the years 1546 and 1554) are quoted by Bushell,[106] and a general summary of them is given in the T’ao shuo.[107] To quote them in full here would take too much space, but the following notes may be useful to the reader, who, with his knowledge of the later porcelains, should have no difficulty in reconstructing for himself the general appearance of the court wares of the time.

The actual objects[108] supplied consisted chiefly of fish bowls (kang), covered and uncovered jars (kuan), of which some were octagonal, bowls (wan), dinner bowls (shan wan) of larger size, saucer dishes (tieh) and round dishes (p’an), tea cups (ch’a chung), tea cups (ou), wine cups (chiu chan), and libation cups (chüeh) with hill-shaped saucers (shan p’an) to support their three feet, various vases (p’ing), slender ovoid jars for wine (t’an), ewers or wine pots (hu p’ing), and wine seas (chiu hai) or large bowls. A large number of complete dinner-table sets (cho ch’i) occur in one of the lists, and we learn from the T’ao shuo that uniform sets with the same pattern and colours throughout were an innovation of the Ming dynasty. A set[109] comprised 27 pieces, including 5 fruit dishes (kuo tieh), 5 food dishes (ts’ai tieh), 5 bowls (wan), 5 vegetable dishes (yün tieh), 3 tea cups (ch’a chung), 1 wine cup (chiu chan), 1 wine saucer (chiu tieh), 1 slop receptacle (cha tou), and 1 vinegar cruse (ts’u chiu). The slop receptacle appears to have been a square bowl used for the remnants of food (see Plate 66, Fig. 1).

The sacrificial vessels of the period included tazza-shaped bowls and dishes (pien tou p’an), large wine jars (t’ai tsun), with swelling body and monster masks for handles, “rhinoceros” jars (hsi tsun) in the form of a rhinoceros carrying a vase on its back, besides various dishes, plates, cups, and bowls of undefined form.

(1) Blue and white (ch’ing hua pai ti, blue ornament on a white ground), which is by far the largest.

(2) Blue ware, which included blue bowls (ch’ing wan), sky-blue bowls (t’ien ch’ing wan), and turquoise bowls (ts’ui ch’ing wan). In some cases the ware is described as plain blue monochrome, and in one item it is “best blue monochrome” (t’ou ch’ing su), while in others there are designs engraved under the glaze (an hua). In others, again, ornament such as dragons and sea waves is mentioned without specifying how it was executed. Such ornament may have been etched with a point in the blue surface,[110] or pencilled in darker blue on a blue background or reserved in white in a blue ground. Another kind is more fully described as “round dishes of pure blue (shun ch’ing) with dragons and sea waves inside, and on the exterior a background of dense cloud scrolls[111] with a gilt[112] decoration of three lions and dragons.” Bushell[113] speaks of the “beautiful mottled blue ground for which this reign is also remarkable,” and which, he says, was produced by the usual blend of Mohammedan and native blue suspended in water.

(4) White ware, plain[114] or with engraved designs under the glaze (an hua, lit. secret ornament).

(5) Ware with brown glaze in two varieties, tzŭ chin (golden brown), and chin huang (golden yellow), with dragon designs engraved under the glaze. These are the well-known lustrous brown glazes, the former of dark coffee brown shade, and the latter a light golden brown.

(6) Ware with mixed colours (tsa sê), which included bowls and dishes decorated in iron red[115] (fan hung) instead of the “fresh red” (hsien hung); others with emerald green colour (ts’ui lü sê); bowls with phœnixes and flowers of Paradise in yellow in a blue ground; cups with blue cloud and dragon designs in a yellow ground; boxes with dragon and phœnix designs engraved under a yellow glaze; dishes with design of a pair of dragons and clouds in yellow within a golden brown (tzŭ chin) ground; and globular bowls with embossed[116] ornament in a single-coloured ground.

To these types Bushell adds from other similar lists crackled ware (sui ch’i), tea cups of “greenish white porcelain” (ch’ing pai tz’ŭ), which seems to be a pale celadon, and large fish bowls with pea green (tou ch’ing) glaze.

The source of the designs of the porcelain is clearly indicated in the following passage in the T’ao shuo[117]: “Porcelain enamelled in colours was painted in imitation of the fashion of brocaded silks, and we have consequently the names of blue ground, yellow ground, and brown gold (tzŭ chin) ground. The designs used to decorate it were also similar, and included dragons in motion (tsou lung), clouds and phœnixes, ch’i-lin, lions, mandarin ducks, myriads of gold pieces, dragon medallions (p’an lung, lit. coiled dragons), pairs of phœnixes, peacocks, sacred storks, the fungus of longevity, the large lion in his lair, wild geese in clouds with their double nests, large crested waves, phœnixes in the clouds, the son-producing lily, the hundred flowers, phœnixes flying through flowers, the band of Eight Taoist Immortals, dragons pursuing pearls, lions playing with embroidered balls, water weeds, and sporting fishes. These are the names of ancient brocades, all of which the potters have reproduced more or less accurately in the designs and colouring of their porcelain.”

The following analysis of the designs named in the Chia Ching lists will show that the blue and white painters of the period took their inspiration from the same source:—

Celestial flowers (t’ien hua), supporting the characters shou shan fu hai , “longevity of the hills and happiness (inexhaustible as) the sea.”

Flowers of the four seasons (the tree peony for spring, lotus for summer, chrysanthemum for autumn, and prunus for winter).

Interlacing sprays of lotus supporting the Eight Precious Symbols or the Eight Buddhist Emblems.[119]

The celestial flowers and the flowers of Paradise are no doubt similar designs of idealised flowers in scrolls or groups.[121] The pao hsiang hua, which is given in Giles’s Dictionary as “the rose,” is rendered by Bushell “flowers of Paradise” or “fairy flowers.” Judging by the designs with this name in Chinese works, and also from the fact that the rose is a very rare motive on Chinese wares before the Ch’ing dynasty, whereas the pao hsiang hua is one of the commonest in the Ming lists, Bushell’s rendering is probably correct in the present context.

Dragons, represented as pursuing jewels (kan chu); grasping jewels (k’ung chu); in clouds; emerging from water; in bamboo foliage and fungus plants; among water chestnut flowers; among scrolls of Indian lotus; emerging from sea waves and holding up the Eight Trigrams (pa kua); holding up the characters fu (happiness) or shou (longevity), as on Fig. 1 of Plate 66.

Dragons of antique form. These are the lizard-like creatures (ch’ih) with bifid tail which occur so often in old bronzes and jades.

The Eight Immortals (pa hsien) crossing the sea; or paying court to the god of Longevity (p’êng shou), or congratulating him (ch’ing shou).

(1) “Jars decorated with chiang hsia pa chün,”[125] a phrase which means “the eight elegant (scholars) of Chiang-hsia (i.e. below the river),” but has been translated by Bushell, using a variant reading,[126] as “the eight horses of Mu Wang.” The latter rendering ignores the presence of chiang hsia, and the former, though a correct reading of the original, is not explained in any work of reference to which I have had access.

(2) “Bowls with man ti ch’iao,” lit. “graceful (designs) filling the ground.” The meaning of ch’iao is the difficulty, and Bushell in one translation[127] has rendered it “graceful sprays of flowers,” which sorts well with rest of the phrase, but in another[128] he has assumed that it means “graceful beauties” in reference to the well-known design of tall, slender girls, which the Dutch collectors named lange lijsen (see Plate 92, Fig. 2). The latter rendering, however, goes badly with man ti, “filling the ground,” which is certainly more applicable to some close design, such as floral scroll work. This is, however, a good example of the difficulty of translating the Chinese texts, where so much is left to the imagination, and consequently there is so much room for differences of opinion.

Plate 68.—Blue and White Porcelain. Sixteenth Century.

Fig. 1.—Perfume Vase, lions and balls of brocade. Height 8¾ inches. V. & A. Museum.

Fig. 2. Double Gourd Vase, square in the lower part. Eight Immortals paying court to the God of Longevity, panels of children (wa wa). Height 21 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection.

Fig. 3.—Bottle with medallions of ch’i-lin and incised fret pattern between. Late Ming. Height 9 inches. Halsey Collection.

Plate 69.—Sixteenth Century Porcelain.

Fig. 1.—Bowl of blue and white porcelain with silver gilt mount of Elizabethan period. Height 3¾ inches. British Museum.

Fig. 2.—Covered Jar, painted in dark underglaze blue with red, green and yellow enamels; fishes and water plants. Chia Ching mark. Height 17 inches. S. E. Kennedy Collection.

Plate 70.—Porcelain with Chia Ching mark.

Fig. 1.—Box with incised Imperial dragons and lotus scrolls; turquoise and dark violet glazes on the biscuit. Diameter 9½ inches. V. & A. Museum.

Fig. 2.—Vase with Imperial dragons in clouds, painted in yellow in an iron red ground. Height 8½ inches. Cologne Museum.

Plate 71.—Sixteenth Century Porcelain.

Figs. 1 and 2.—Two Ewers in the Dresden Collection, with transparent green, aubergine and turquoise glazes on the biscuit, traces of gilding. In form of a phœnix (height 11 inches), and of a crayfish (height 8¼ inches).

Fig. 3.—Bowl with flight of storks in a lotus scroll, enamels on the biscuit, green, aubergine and white in a yellow ground. Chia Ching mark. Diameter 7 inches. Alexander Collection.

Heaven and Earth, and the six cardinal points (ch’ien k’un liu ho[129]), or “emblems of the six cardinal points of the Universe.”

Ch’ien and k’un are the male and female principles which are represented by Heaven and Earth, and together make up the Universe. The identification of these emblems is obscure. They might simply be the Eight Trigrams (pa kua), which are explained next, for two of these are known as ch’ien and k’un, and together with the remaining six they are arranged so as to make up eight points of the compass. But in that case, why not simply say pa kua as elsewhere?

On the other hand, we know that certain emblems were used in the Chou dynasty[130] in the worship of the six points of the Universe, viz. a round tablet with pierced centre (pi) of bluish jade for Heaven; a yellow jade tube with square exterior (ts’ung) for Earth; a green tablet (kuei), oblong with pointed top, for the East; a red tablet (chang), oblong and knife-shaped, for the South; a white tablet, in the shape of a tiger (hu), for the West; and a black jade piece of flat semicircular form (huang) for the North. All these objects are illustrated in Laufer’s Jade, but as they have not, to my knowledge, appeared together in porcelain decoration, the question must for the present be left open.

These are eight combinations of triple lines. In the first the lines are unbroken, and in the last they are all divided at the centre, the intermediate figures consisting of different permutations of broken and unbroken lines (see p. 290). These eight diagrams, by which certain Chinese philosophers explained all the phenomena of Nature, are supposed to have been constructed by the legendary Emperor Fu Hsi (B.C. 2852) from a plan revealed to him on the back of the “dragon horse” (lung ma) which rose from the Yellow River.[131] Among other things, they are used to designate the points of the compass, one arrangement making the first figure represent the South (also designated ch’ien or Heaven), and the last figure the North (also designated k’un or Earth), the remaining figures representing South-West, West, North-West, North-East, East, and South-East.

These are usually represented by (1) a sphere or jewel, which seems to have originally been the sun disc; (2) a circle enclosing a square, which suggests the copper coin called a “cash”; (3) an open lozenge, symbol of victory or success; (4) a musical stone (ch’ing); (5) a pair of books; (6) a pair of rhinoceros horns (cups); (7) a lozenge-shaped picture (hua); (8) a leaf of the artemisia, a plant of good omen, which dispels sickness. (See p. 299.)

These symbols, which appeared among the auspicious signs on the foot of Buddha, comprise (1) the wheel (chakra), which is sometimes replaced by the hanging bell; (2) the shell trumpet of Victory; (3) the umbrella of state; (4) the canopy; (5) the lotus flower; (6) the vase; (7) the pair of fish, emblems of fertility; (8) the angular knot (representing the entrails), symbol of longevity. (See p. 298.)

The ju-i (“as you wish”) sceptre brings fulfilment of wishes, and is a symbol of longevity (see vol. i., p. 227). The head of the ju-i, which has a strong resemblance to the conventional form of the ling chih fungus, is often used in borders and formal patterns variously described as “ju-i head patterns,” “cloud-scroll patterns,” or “ju-i cloud patterns.”

Cloud designs are propitious because they symbolise the fertilising rain, and they are commonly represented by conventional scrolls as well as by the more obvious cloud patterns.

Chiang ya (lit. ginger shoots) is rendered by Bushell “crested waves,” the metaphor being apparently suggested by the curling tops of the young plant.

Cups decorated[132] with the characters fu shou k’ang ning (happiness, long life, peace, and tranquillity).

A blue and white vase with these characters in medallions framed by cloud scrolls on the shoulders is shown on Plate 68.

A design named san yang k’ai t’ai , a phrase alluding to the “revivifying power of spring,” and said by Bushell to be symbolised by three rams. Cf. Fig. 2 of Plate 122.

The mark of the Chia Ching period, though not so freely used as those of Hsüan Tê and Ch’êng Hua, has been a favourite with Japanese copyists, whose imitations have often proved dangerously clever. Still, there are enough genuine specimens in public and private collections in England to provide a fair representation of the ware. In studying these the blue and white will be found to vary widely, both in body material and in the colour of the blue, according to the quality of the objects.

Plate 77 illustrates a remarkably good example of the dark but vivid Mohammedan blue on a pure white ware of fine close grain with clear glaze. The design, which consists of scenes from the life of a sage, perhaps Confucius himself, is painted in typical Ming style, and bordered by ju-i cloud scrolls and formal brocade patterns. The Chia Ching blue is often darker[133] and heavier than here, resembling thick patches of violet ink, to use Mr. Perzynski’s phrase. This powerful blue is well shown in the large vase given by Mr. A. Burman to the Victoria and Albert Museum (Plate 72), and by a fine ewer in Case 22 in the same gallery. The latter has an accidentally crackled glaze on the body with brownish tint, due, no doubt, to staining.

On the other hand, a large double-gourd vase in the British Museum, heavily made (probably for export), is painted with the eighteen Arhats, or Buddhist apostles, in a dull greyish blue, which would certainly have been assigned to the Wan Li period were it not for the Chia Ching mark. This is, no doubt, the native cobalt without any admixture of Mohammedan blue.

The body material in these specimens varies scarcely less than the blue. In the colour stand on Plate 77 the ware is a pure clean white, both in body and glaze. On other specimens—particularly the large, heavily built jars and vases made for export to India and Persia—the ware is of coarser grain, and the glaze of grey or greenish tone. The tendency of the Ming biscuit to assume a reddish tinge where exposed to the fire is exaggerated on some of these large jars, so that the exposed parts at the base and foot rim are sometimes a dark reddish brown. Doubtless the clay from different mines varied considerably, and the less pure materials would be used on these relatively coarse productions. On the other hand, the better class of dish and bowl made for service at the table is usually of clean white ware, potted thin and neatly finished, and differing but little in refinement from the choice porcelains of the eighteenth century. Such are the dragon dish described on p. 32 and the polychrome saucers which will be mentioned presently.

The export trade with Western Asia and Egypt, both by sea and land, must have been of considerable dimensions in the middle of the sixteenth century. Broken pieces of Chinese blue and white are found on all the excavated sites in the Near East, and the influence of the Chinese porcelain is clearly seen in the blue, or blue and brown, painted faience made in Persia, Syria, and Egypt in the sixteenth century. The reflex influence of Persia on the Chinese wares has already been noted, and it is clear that Persian taste was studied by the makers of the dishes, bottles, pipes, and other objects with birds and animals in foliage and floral scrolls of decidedly Persian flavour, which are still frequently found in the Near East. It was this type of Chinese porcelain which inspired Italian maiolica potters in their decoration alla porcellana, as well as the decorators of the Medici or Florentine porcelain, the first European porcelain of any note. Françesco Maria, the patron of the Medici porcelain, died in 1587, and as little, if any, of the ware was made after his death, the rare surviving examples may be safely taken as reflecting, where any Chinese influence is apparent, the influence of the mid-sixteenth century porcelains.

PLATE 72

Vase with Imperial five-clawed dragons in cloud scrolls over sea waves: band of lotus scrolls on the shoulder. Painted in dark Mohammedan blue. Mark on the neck, of the Chia Ching period (1522–1566) in six characters.

Height 21 inches.

Victoria and Albert Museum.

An interesting series of Ming blue and white export wares collected in India was lent to the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910 by Mrs. Halsey. It included a few Chia Ching specimens, and among them a melon-shaped jar with lotus scrolls in the dark blue of the period. This melon form has been popular with the Chinese potters from T’ang times, and it occurs fairly often in the Ming export porcelains. A companion piece, for instance, at the same exhibition was decorated with handsome pine, bamboo, and plum designs. Others, again, are appropriately ornamented with a melon vine pattern, a gourd vine, or a grape vine with a squirrel-like animal on the branches. The drawing of these pieces is usually rough but vigorous, the form is good, and the blue as a rule soft and pleasing; and though entirely wanting in the superfine finish of the choice K’ang Hsi blue and white, they have a decorative value which has been sadly underrated.

The polychrome porcelains of the Chia Ching period are rarer than the blue and white, but still a fair number of types are represented in English collections. Of the colours applied direct to the biscuit the early glazes of the demi-grand feu—turquoise, aubergine violet, green and yellow—were doubtless applied as in the previous century to the large wine jars, vases and figures in the round. An unusual specimen of this class is the marked Chia Ching cake box in the Victoria and Albert Museum, illustrated on Plate 70. The design—Imperial dragons among floral scrolls—is traced with a point in the paste and covered with a delicate turquoise glaze, the background being filled with violet aubergine. Similarly engraved designs coloured by washes of transparent glazes in the three colours—green, yellow and aubergine brown—are found with the Chia Ching mark as with that of Chêng Tê, and Plate 73 illustrates two singularly beautiful bowls with designs outlined in brown and washed in with transparent glazes. The one has flowering branches of prunus, peach and pomegranate in white, green and aubergine in a yellow ground, and the other phœnixes and floral scrolls in yellow, green and white in a ground of pale aubergine. Both have the Chia Ching mark. Fig. 2 of Plate 71 is another member of the same group, with a beautiful design of cranes and lotus scrolls in a yellow ground. There are, besides, examples of these yellow and aubergine glazes in monochrome. A good specimen of the latter with Chia Ching mark in the British Museum has fine transparent aubergine glaze with iridescent surface, the colour pleasantly graded, which contrasts with the uniform smooth glaze and trim finish of a Ch’ien Lung example near to it.

Two interesting ewers in the Dresden collection (Figs. 1 and 2 of Plate 71) probably belong to this period, or at any rate to the sixteenth century. They are fantastically shaped to represent a phœnix and a lobster, and are decorated with green, yellow, aubergine and a little turquoise applied direct to the biscuit. Parts of the surface have been lightly coated with gilding, which has almost entirely disappeared. These pieces are mentioned in an inventory of 1640, and a lobster ewer precisely similar was included in the collection made by Philipp Hainhofer in the early years of the seventeenth century.[134]

Among the examples of on-glaze enamels of this period are those in which the coral red derived from iron oxide (fan hung) is the most conspicuous colour. This red is often highly iridescent, displaying soft ruby reflections like Persian lustre; at other times it is richly fluxed, and has a peculiarly vitreous and almost sticky appearance. The former effect is well seen in a small saucer in the British Museum, which has a wide border of deep lustrous red surrounding a medallion with lions and a brocade ball in green. The latter is seen on a square, covered vase in the same case, decorated on each side with full-faced dragons in red and the usual cloud accessories in inconspicuous touches of green and yellow. The yellow enamel of the period is often of an impure, brownish tint and rather thickly applied, but these peculiarities of both yellow and red continued in the Wan Li period.

PLATE 73

Two Bowls with the Chia Ching mark (1522–1566), with designs outlined in brown and washed in with colours in monochrome grounds.

Fig. 1 with peach sprays in a yellow ground. Diameter 8 inches. Alexander Collection.

Fig. 2 with phœnixes (fêng-huang) flying among scrolls of mu-tan peony. Diameter 7 inches. Cumberbatch Collection.

The combination of enamel colours with underglaze blue, which was so largely used in the Wan Li period as to be generally known by the name Wan li wu ts’ai (Wan Li polychrome), is not unknown on Chia Ching wares. The wide-mouthed jar, for instance, from the collection of Mr. S. E. Kennedy[135] (Plate 69, Fig. 2) is decorated with a design of fish among water plants in deep Chia Ching blue combined with green, yellow and iron red enamels; and a small bottle-shaped vase in the British Museum has the same blue combined with on-glaze red, green, yellow and aubergine, the design being fish, waves, and water plants. The greens of this and the Wan Li period include various shades—bright leaf green, pale emerald, and a bluish green[136] which seems to be peculiar to the late Ming period.

A box in the collection of Dr. C. Seligmann has a dragon design reserved in a blue ground and washed over with yellow enamel, on which in turn are details traced in iron red; and another peculiar type of Chia Ching polychrome in the Pierpont Morgan Collection (Cat. No. 882) is a tea cup with blue Imperial dragons inside, “on the outside deep yellow glaze with decoration in brownish red of intensely luminous tone, derived from iron, lightly brushed on the yellow ground: the decoration consists of a procession of boys carrying vases of flowers round the sides of the cup with addition of a scroll of foliage encircling the rim.” Both these specimens have the Chia Ching mark.

Allusion has already been made (p. 6) to a type of bowl which belongs to the Ming period, though opinions differ as to the exact part of that dynasty to which it should be assigned. The bowls vary slightly in form, but the most usual kind is that shown on Plate 74 with well rounded sides. A common feature, which does not appear in the photograph, is a convex centre. Others, again, are shallow with concave base, but no foot rim. The decoration of those in the British Museum includes (1) a coral red exterior with gilt designs as described on p. 6, combined with slight underglaze blue interior ornament, (2) a beautiful pale emerald green exterior similarly gilt, with or without blue ornament inside, and (3) a single specimen with white slip traceries in faint relief under the glaze inside, the outside enamelled with turquoise blue medallions and set with cabochon jewels in Persia or India. There are similar bowls in the Dresden collection, with pale sky blue glaze on the exterior. As already noted, one or two of the red bowls have the Yung Lo mark, but, as a rule, they are marked with phrases of commendation or good wish,[137] such as tan kuei (red cassia, emblem of literary success), wan fu yu t’ung (may infinite happiness embrace all your affairs!) Two of them are known to have sixteenth-century European mounts, viz. the red bowl mentioned on p. 6, and a green specimen in the British Museum.[138] Without denying the possibility of some of the red examples dating back to the Yung Lo period, the conclusion is almost irresistible that we have here in one case the fan hung decoration which replaced the hsien hung in the Chia Ching period, and in another the ts’ui lü (emerald green), named among the colours of the Imperial Chia Ching porcelains.

The Chia Ching monochromes already mentioned include white, blue, sky blue, lustrous brown, turquoise, green, yellow, and aubergine, with or without designs engraved in the paste (an hua). None of these call for any further comment, unless it be the distinction between blue and sky blue of the Imperial wares. The former, no doubt, resulted from the Mohammedan blue (blended with native cobalt) mixed with the glaze, and must have been a fine blue of slightly violet tone: the latter was apparently the lavender-tinted blue which goes by the name of sky blue on the more modern porcelains.

We read in more than one passage in the Chinese works that the imitation of the classical porcelains of Hsüan Tê and Ch’êng Hua was practised in the Chia Ching period, and the name of a private potter who excelled in this kind of work has been preserved. A note on this artist, given in the T’ao lu[139] under the heading Ts’ui kung[140] yao, or Wares of Mr. Ts’ui, may be rendered as follows:—

“In the Chia Ching and Lung Ch’ing periods there lived a man who was clever at making porcelain (t’ao). He was famed for imitations of the wares in the traditional style and make of the Hsüan Tê and Ch’êng Hua periods, and in his time he enjoyed the highest reputation. The name given to his wares was Mr. Ts’ui’s porcelain (ts’ui kung yao tz’ŭ), and they were eagerly sought in all parts of the empire. As for the shape of his cups (ch’ien), when compared with the Hsüan and Ch’êng specimens[141] they differed in size but displayed the same skill and perfection of design. In the blue and polychrome wares his colours were all like the originals. His were, in fact, the cream of the porcelains made in the private factories (min t’ao).”

CHAPTER IV CHIA CHING (1522–1566) AND LUNG CH’ING (1567–1572)

CHAPTER IV
CHIA CHING (1522–1566) AND LUNG CH’ING (1567–1572)