Porcelain. Dillon Edward
for the teaching of the Chinese books; but when, attacking the subject from the other side, we examine the specimens of enamelled ware which for one reason or another—the coarseness and thickness of the paste, the moulded form, and the irregular surface—we should be inclined to attribute to the Ming dynasty, we are led to classify these earlier examples somewhat as follows:—
1. On a white ground a design, often, it would seem, of textile origin, roughly painted in an opaque red (like sealing-wax), with the addition of a leafy green and very rarely of a little yellow. This is a class of decoration much imitated in Japan at a later date, especially by the artist potters of Kioto and at Inuyama.
2. The same colours with the addition of blue, sous couverte. The design often takes the form of figures in a landscape, the whole broadly treated. The earliest type of the Imari ware (apart from the Kakiyemon) seems to be based on this scheme of decoration.
Both these classes are distinguished by the white ground, the sparing use of yellow, and the almost complete absence of manganese purple and turquoise blue.
3. A transparent enamel of leafy green, yellow and manganese purple painted on in washes so as to cover the whole ground. When with these colours we find the outline drawn in black, we have the basis of a large part of the famille verte. On the other hand, it is this class of decoration which probably carries on the tradition of the early Ming ware, sometimes described as ‘enamelled,’ but more probably all of it painted on the biscuit and fired in the demi grand feu.
In China it would seem that these enamelled wares were at first treated with a certain disfavour, if not with contempt, at least by the more cultivated classes. During Ming times, though porcelain thus decorated was doubtless made at King-te-chen, it was, at least up to the latter part of the reign of Wan-li, chiefly made in private factories. In fact we find a censor, in the reign of that emperor, protesting against the use of enamel colours (the wu-tsai) in the porcelain supplied to the palace (Bushell, p. 241).
PLATE VII. CHINESE
We have now sketched out a description of the various kinds of porcelain made during the course of the Ming dynasty, and before going on at once to an account of the period associated with King-te-chen and the great rulers of the Manchu dynasty, it will be well to extract a few notes on points that may interest us from the somewhat voluminous records and descriptions of the porcelain of Ming times found in the books of the Chinese authorities.48
Yung-lo (1402-24).49—This great emperor, who sent out ships for conquest and for commerce as far as Ceylon, is for us especially associated with a white eggshell porcelain of which there are two remarkable specimens in the British Museum (see above, p. 67). Bowls of this thinness must have been pared down on the lathe, after throwing on the wheel, in the manner described on p. 22, until a mere translucent ghost of the original body was left, so that the name to-t’ai or ‘bodiless,’ by which this ware is known to the Chinese, is not inappropriate. The earliest blue and white porcelain of which there is any definite record was made in this reign, but the evidence for this is, of course, purely ‘documentary.’ The quality of the blue is said to have been surpassed only by that of the Hsuan-te and Cheng-hua periods.
Hsuan-te (1425-35).—The short reign of this emperor is connected in the mind of the Chinese with the finest works both of the metal worker and the potter. This period gave its name to the famous pale bronze so admired in later days by the Japanese.50 The blue of the Hsuan-te period, unsurpassed in later times, we are told, was derived from Arab sources, for the famous Su-ni-po and Su-ma-li blues are first mentioned at this time. The word Su-ma-li has been compared with the low Latin Smaltum, the prepared silicate of cobalt used by the mediæval glass-stainers, but from the description of this substance in the Chinese books, it would seem rather to have been of the nature of a native ore. When, however, we read in the same books of the origin of the brilliant red for which this reign was equally famous, how it was prepared from ‘powdered rubies of the West,’ we see how little reliance we can place in their accounts. This red, derived of course from the sub-oxide of copper, was applied either to cover the whole surface, as in the little bowls mentioned on p. 81 (‘painted on the biscuit,’ says Dr. Bushell, but is this necessarily so?), or for the painting of a design in this case both alone and in combination with blue. We hear also of large jars and garden seats of a coarse porcelain, with dark blue and turquoise ground and decoration of ribbed cloisons, which were first made in this reign. Of this class we have spoken at length when treating of the ‘painted glazes.‘51 Of what nature the decoration in five colours, which is also referred to this reign, may have been, it is difficult to say—we have no specimen so painted that we can assign to so old a period, but in this connection we certainly must not think of enamels painted over the glaze.
Cheng-tung reigned from 1435 to 1449; he was then captured by the Mongols, and during the five years of his imprisonment his brother Cheng-tai reigned in his stead. When Cheng-tung returned from his captivity he adopted a fresh name.52 This is the only instance of a double nien-hao in later Chinese history. We hear of Cheng-tai in connection with the introduction of enamels on metal, but for the history of porcelain both reigns are a blank.
Cheng-hua (1464-87).—This is a name familiar to collectors. It is found more frequently than any other on highly finished vases dating really from the eighteenth century. Strangely enough, this is the favourite mark on the finest blue and white of this later time, although, as we have already pointed out, the Chinese books tell us that, the sources of the foreign cobalt blue being in Cheng-hua’s time exhausted, more attention was given to coloured decoration. This was the time of the famous ‘chicken-cups,’ for which such fabulous sums were given. These cups are described as decorated with the wu-tsai or five colours; and the subject painted on them, a hen and chickens by the side of a flowering peony-bush, reminds one of the enamelled egg-shell cups of Kien-lung (1735-95). The Ming cups were copied, we are told, at that time; but it is difficult to connect this early ware, of which unfortunately we possess no specimen, with the delicate enamel decoration of the famille rose.53
Hung-chi (1487-1505).—This name appears especially on the back of bowls in association with a yellow glaze of various shades, and, in agreement this time with the material evidence, the Chinese books mention this yellow as a speciality of the reign. Not that we can regard all yellow ware with this mark as even of this dynasty; like other Ming ware it was imitated in the eighteenth century. The yellow varies from the pale brown of the raw chestnut to a full gamboge tint. There is at South Kensington a dish or shallow bowl with a full yellow glaze; on the back beside the nien-hao of Hung-chi, a Persian inscription and a date corresponding to the sixteenth century has been cut in the paste.
Cheng-te (1505-21).—The decoration of blue on a white ground is said to have been revived in this reign. A new material, the hui-ching54 or Mohammedan blue, was obtained from Yun-nan. In connection with this, we can point to a curious collection of bronze and porcelain, with both Arabic and Chinese inscriptions, made probably for Mohammedan Chinese. These objects were obtained by the late Sir A. W. Franks from Pekin, and are now in the British Museum. Among them there are several pieces of blue and white with the Cheng-te year-mark.55 On one of these pieces the Persian word for ‘writing-case’ forms part of the decoration (Pl. viii.). It is in this reign that we hear for the first time of the oppression exercised by the court officials upon the potters of King-te-chen, and now also we find the court eunuchs in the highest positions,—the great days of the Ming dynasty are already passed.
Kia-tsing (1521-66).—The name of this emperor is often found on blue and white porcelain, and it is a favourite one with the Japanese imitators. Some
Much of this kind was translated by Julien, and a good summary may be found in Hippisley’s paper contributed to the Smithsonian Institute, but the information from the same and other sources is more accurately translated and critically analysed in the seventh and eighth chapters of Dr. Bushell’s great work.
Yung-lo, according to the Chinese reckoning, did not commence his reign until the new year’s day following the death of his predecessor (1403). I have, however, thought it better to adopt the European method of reckoning dates.
More properly a
The Trenchard bowls, mentioned below, belong probably to this or to the following reign.
But this name is also applied by some to the older Su-ma-li blue.
Perhaps the earliest nien-hao on a piece of blue and white in which we can place any confidence.