THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA--(_continued_).
THE MING DYNASTY (1368-1643).
It was in the course of the three centuries during which the Ming
dynasty ruled in China that the greatest advance was made in the
manufacture of porcelain. When, however, we come to look a little more
closely, we find that this long period may be shortened by nearly a
hundred years. Before the accession of Yung-lo (1402), and after the
death of Wanli (1619), the times were little favourable to the arts of
peace, and even in this shorter period of two centuries there were
intervals, indeed whole reigns, of which there is little to report.
The points of chief importance to remember in connection with this
dynasty are--1. That not later than the beginning of the fifteenth
century the employment of the oxides of copper and cobalt for decoration
under the glaze was coming into general use. To this, or perhaps to an
earlier date, we must assign the beginnings of the ware that we in
England are wont to consider the most important of all, the great family
of ‘blue and white’ porcelain. 2. That probably about the same time, or
soon after, the ‘painted glazes,’ as we have called them, were
introduced. In this ware the colours required for the decoration--the
palette was a very restricted one--were painted directly on the biscuit,
the piece having been previously fired; it was then re-fired at a
moderate heat. 3. That at a later period, probably about the middle of
the sixteenth century, the employment of enamel colours above the glaze
was introduced, probably under European influence.
It is the blue and white that we are above all accustomed to associate
with the Ming period. But this is not the Chinese point of view. If we
consult the Bushell manuscript (see chap. v.) we find that Tzu-ching,
towards the end of the sixteenth century, had in his collection
thirty-nine pieces which he attributed to the reigning dynasty, but of
these only five or six would be classed by us as ‘blue and white’; at
least equal importance was given to those decorated with copper-red
under the glaze, and even more specimens belong to the class of painted
glazes. These latter are chiefly little objects--pen-rests, rouge-pots,
and small wine-jars moulded to represent plant and animal forms, the
gourd or again the persimmon being great favourites. We must not confuse
these early specimens, dating mostly from the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, with the somewhat similar objects so much sought after by the
French collectors in the eighteenth century, which belong for the most
part to the contemporary _famille verte_; on these the decoration is
given for the most part by enamels _painted over the glaze_. Still it is
from some of these little _magots_ that we can perhaps form the best
idea of the coloured porcelain so prized by Tzu-ching, but of which we
are unable to point to any specimens in our collections.
In connection with these painted glazes--for it undoubtedly belongs to
this class--it may be well to say something of a very decorative ware of
which the origin is probably to be placed in early Ming times. The
colours are distinctly those of the _demi grand feu_, and in this ware
we have the earliest instance of the use of these colours. This
porcelain occurs most frequently in the shape of vases of baluster
outline with contracted necks and small mouths, or sometimes of the
more ordinary oil-jar shape, with wide mouths. We may distinguish two
types of this ware. In the first the decoration is given by means of a
low relief of beads and of ribs surrounding countersunk _cloisons_. The
field between these _cloisons_ is of a deep blue passing into a
blue-black, and the _cloisons_ themselves are filled with a wash of
turquoise or straw-yellow. Chains of pearls in festoon surround the
neck, and from these hang _pendeloques_ of various Buddhist emblems. On
the body of these vases the decoration often consists of lotus-plants
arising from conventional waves.[40] In the second type the turquoise
blue predominates, an impure pale manganese is added, and the jars are
often built up of an open-work trellis of bars. Both the turquoise and
aubergine purple porcelain of the Kang-he period, as well as the
Japanese Kishiu ware, may possibly be traced back to a Ming porcelain of
this class. There are specimens of all these wares in the British Museum
and at South Kensington. In the Salting collection is a jar of the
_cloisonné_ type, the blue-black ground covered with a skin of thin
glaze of a dull surface. This jar was formerly the property of a
Japanese collector (PL. II.).[41]
The colours applied _under the glaze_ are confined to cobalt blue and
copper red. The latter when fine in tint was greatly prized by the
Chinese, and we are informed that in the most brilliant specimens the
colour was given by ‘powdered rubies from the West.’ It was, however, a
treacherous colour to use, and after the period of Hsuan-te (1425-1435),
which was famous for its ruby-red,
[Illustration: _PLATE V._ CHINESE]
it fell into comparative disuse and was displaced in a measure at a
later date by a more manageable iron red. The use of the copper
sub-oxide to obtain a red, _sous couverte_, was, however, revived in the
time of Kang-he. On examples in European collections this red, when used
alone or in connection with blue, is generally of a rather poor maroon
colour, and it has not found much favour with us. The colour was often
thus applied to the painting of fish, floating, it may be, among blue
water-weeds. We see it at its best as a monochrome on some little bowls,
enlivened with a floral design in gold, in the British Museum. These
cups and some similar ones at Dresden undoubtedly date from Ming times;
the ruby tint seen through a brilliant glaze has never been equalled in
later days. With these we may compare certain little apple-green bowls
similarly decorated with gold. One of these in a silver-gilt mounting of
the early sixteenth century is in the Gold Room at the British Museum
(PL. V.).
‘BLUE AND WHITE’ PORCELAIN.
What we somewhat vaguely call ‘blue and white,’ that is porcelain
decorated under the glaze with designs painted with cobalt blue, has
always formed the most important class in the eyes of European
collectors, at least of those of England and Holland. This preference
has been even more marked with the people of India and Persia, and no
wonder, for no combination of colour more suggestive of coolness could
be imagined. It has thus come about that this class of ware, more than
any other, has been made with the direct object of exportation. This
blue and white porcelain of China and Japan, which has found its way
into so many lands both of Europe and Asia, has for centuries had the
profoundest influence upon the native wares of these countries, whether
of porcelain or of fayence.
In China, by the introduction of this process of freely painting with a
brush upon the surface of the paste, the potters art was for the first
time brought into contact with that of the painter, and thus fell under
new influences. The artists of China at that time were divided into many
schools, but what we may call the literary or _dilettante_ influence was
predominant, and this influence is reflected in the subjects treated on
Ming porcelain--subjects which, as usual in China, were handed on to the
ceramic artists of the next dynasty. The earliest decoration in blue and
white in no way followed, as far as we know, the hierated types of the
old bronze ware. Such _motifs_ we do indeed sometimes see repeated on
porcelain, but only on pieces that may safely be attributed to a much
later date, especially to the pseudo-archaic revival of Yung-cheng’s
time (1722-35).
There is no class of Chinese porcelain to which it is more difficult to
assign even an approximate date than to this blue and white ware. We may
say at once that the _nien-hao_, or the characters giving the name of
the dynasty and the emperor, so often found inscribed on the base, are
in the vast majority of cases of no value for fixing the date, and this
is especially true when the name of a Ming emperor is thus found. What
is more, these marks, as far as we can judge (from the knowledge we now
possess derived from other sources), do not, as we might have expected,
even help us in giving hints of the style prevailing at the period
indicated by the date. To take but one example, the reign-mark of
Cheng-hua (1464-87) is the one most frequently found on the finest
pieces of blue and white (in the Salting collection, for instance), but
by far the greater number of the pieces so marked undoubtedly date from
the beginning of the eighteenth century. On the other hand, the Chinese
books all agree in telling us that this Cheng-hua period was noted for
a decline in the excellence of the blue, but on the other hand was
pre-eminent for its coloured decoration. It was rather the earlier
Hsuan-te period (1425-35) that was renowned for the brilliancy of its
blue. These statements of the Chinese authorities are confirmed by an
analysis of the Ming specimens illustrated in the Bushell manuscript.
The Japanese, perhaps a little more rationally, give the preference to
the reigns of Hsuan-te and Yung-lo (1402-24), for the date-marks of
these emperors (‘Sentoku’ and ‘Yeiraku’ in the Japanese reading) are to
be read on the commonest modern blue and white in domestic use in that
country.
This is a point that cannot be too strongly dwelt upon. Perhaps if a
little more of the care and research that have been devoted to the
reading of these _nien-hao_ and other inscriptions on Chinese porcelain
had been earlier directed to a careful examination of the glazes and
enamels, and to questions of technique generally, the misconceptions
that so long prevailed as to the dating and classification of Oriental
porcelain would have been sooner dispelled.
But what means have we then for settling the date of a piece of Chinese
blue and white ware? What criterion is there for distinguishing between
specimens of early Ming, late Ming, or Manchu times?--or indeed between
those of Chinese and Japanese origin? That we even now possess no very
exact criterion is shown by the wide difference of opinion so often
found in individual cases. If we are to form our judgment from the rare
extant pieces of blue and white known to have been imported into Europe
in the sixteenth century, we must regard the Ming ware as distinguished
by a certain irregularity of surface, seen best by side-reflected
lights; the pieces are generally moulded, and the marks of the lines of
junction of the moulds are often to be traced on the surface; the paste,
too, is generally very thick, and sometimes shows gaping fissures at
the margin. The drawing of the design is somewhat hasty and summary,
although at times distinguished by a freshness of handling and by a
certain caligraphic freedom. But we must not draw too hasty an inference
from the few specimens in our European collections, many of which must
have been made, as we shall see later on, at a period of temporary
decline; nor are we justified in regarding mere articles of commerce, as
most of these specimens undoubtedly were, as representative of the
higher artistic products of the time.
The blue in these early pieces is generally of a full tint but not of
any remarkable quality. There are, however, to be found a few specimens,
heavily moulded indeed and of irregular contour, decorated with cobalt
blue of a full sapphire tint. Of this class there are one or two
brilliant specimens both in the British Museum and at South Kensington.
In these and in other Ming wares the surface of the glaze is often
dulled, and this is not always the result of minute scratches, for
sometimes a process of devitrification appears to have set in.[42]
Another class of Ming ware is distinguished by a decoration delicately
painted in a pale blue tint, and it was this style that was copied by
the Japanese in their Mikawaji ware of the seventeenth century.
It is to later Ming times that we must attribute the bulk of the rough
heavy ware of which so much is found in India.[43] These are generally
large plates and bowls, often discoloured from having been used for
cooking purposes. The decoration is hastily executed
[Illustration: _PLATE VI._ CHINESE, BLUE AND WHITE WARE]
in a dull indigo blue (derived of course from cobalt, as in other
cases), and the outlines are often accentuated by black lines. Many fine
specimens of this picturesque ware, from the collection of Mrs. Halsey,
were shown in the exhibition of blue and white ware at the Burlington
Fine Arts Club in 1895. It was claimed for one large vase that it came
from the palace of the Moguls at Agra, and that it had been presented to
Jehangir by the Chinese emperor Wan-li (1572-1619). It is often stated
that this class of ware was made at some factory in the south of China,
probably in the neighbourhood of Canton, the port from which doubtless
most of it was exported. As yet, however, no evidence, as far as I am
aware, for such a factory has been brought forward, and no definite
locality indicated. The statement made by the Abbé Raynal, about a
factory at Shao-king Fu, rests probably upon a misconception.
There are several specimens of blue and white in England, the metal
mountings of which date from the early seventeenth or even from the
sixteenth century. Of these the most famous are the four pieces from
Burleigh House (now belonging to Mr. Pierpont Morgan), which are
believed to have been in the possession of the Cecil family from the
time of Queen Elizabeth. One of these bears the date-mark of Wan-li, the
contemporary of that queen. This ware is not particularly fine, the
surfaces are irregular, and all the pieces are apparently moulded (PL.
XXVIII.).
This subject, however, of the early presence of Chinese porcelain in
other lands we shall return to in a later chapter.
So far, then, with such imperfect lights as are at our command, we have
attempted to follow up the history of porcelain, and so far, say up to
the middle of the sixteenth century, China is practically the only
country with which we are concerned. Some fair imitations of celadon,
the _martabani_ of Oriental commerce, had probably by this time been
made in Siam and perhaps elsewhere, and the Japanese were already in a
sporadic way experimenting with imported and native clays. But up to the
sixteenth century the Chinese had practically the monopoly of the art,
and as we have seen they had at that time the command of three processes
of decoration--that is by monochrome glazes, by painting with glazes of
a few simple colours on the biscuit, and finally by means of cobalt
blues and copper reds painted on the surface of the raw paste.
Not but that some attempts may have already been made to apply coloured
decoration over the glaze--the next and final step in the history of
porcelain. There are some passages in contemporary Chinese books, giving
descriptions of elaborate subjects painted in many colours on porcelain
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which it would be difficult to
apply to our class of painted glazes. Thus--to take a pronounced
instance from an unexceptionable source--the miniature wine-cups, No. 59
of the Bushell manuscript, are attributed by Tzu-ching to the reign of
Cheng-hua (1464-87), and he describes them thus--‘They are painted in
enamel colours’ (so Dr. Bushell translates the original) ‘with flowers
and insects; ... the cockscomb, the narcissus and other flowers, the
flying dragon-fly and crawling mantis are minutely painted after life in
green, yellow, and crimson enamel.’ (This, by the way, is a combination
of colours which it must have been difficult to apply at one firing with
the pigments known at that time.) And yet in the absence of any specimen
of enamelled ware (using the word enamel in its restricted sense for a
decoration applied over the glaze) that can with certainty be attributed
to so early a period, it will be safer to postpone the date of the
introduction of this decoration, _sur couverte_, for another hundred
years.
It will be remembered that the distinctive feature of this decoration
with enamels is the use of an easily fusible silicate, containing much
lead--in fact a kind of flint glass. A glass of this description is
capable of being stained by the addition of small quantities of certain
metallic oxides, some of which would not stand the heat requisite for
the firing of the porcelain. This, in fact, is the application to
porcelain of the arts of the glass-stainer and of the enameller, arts
already at this time fully developed in the West. For once the Chinese
authorities all agree in finding in an exotic and indeed Western art the
origin of their enamelled porcelain. When, however, we attempt to
interpret their statements we are landed in an even more than customary
chaos--so many are the different readings for the names of foreign
countries and for technical processes.
Let us then consider for a moment what the materials were that the
Chinese had to draw from--whether from Arab or other sources.
Putting aside the application of stained glass to windows, for specimens
of this art are not easily exported, these may be summed up as, first,
the enamelled glass of the Saracens, and secondly, the _cloisonnés_ and
_champlevés_ enamels of the Byzantines and other Western nations.
As to the first--the application of coloured and easily fusible enamels
to the surface of glass, which was then exposed to a second firing--this
process had been used by the Arabs for the decoration of their mosque
lamps and other vessels probably as early as the twelfth century, and
this was an art identical in its system with the application of the same
colours to the surface of porcelain. The beauty of the effect cannot
have failed to have struck the Chinese if they had had any opportunity
of seeing the finer specimens. But the material was fragile, and apart
from a statement by M. Scherer that glass was exported from Aleppo to
China,[44] I cannot find in the accounts of the Arab trade of the time
any record of such ware being imported into China.
On the other hand, we know that enamels on metal are first mentioned in
the Ming annals about the middle of the fifteenth century. They take
their name of Cheng-tai enamels from the emperor who reigned at that
period; but the proper Chinese term for such enamels is _Folang chien
yao_--‘the inlaid ware of Folang.’ Julien interpreted these words
‘_Porcelaines à incrustations (ornées d’émaux) de France_,’ and Dr.
Hirth carries us to Bethlehem! But the word _Folang_ is probably the
same as the term _Folin_ or _Fulen_, used as early as the sixth century
for the Roman empire of the East, and it may possibly be connected with
the Greek πόλις (cf. Stamboul = Εἰς τὴν πόλιν).[45] It is
definitely stated by a later Chinese writer that the same colours are
employed by both the enameller on metal and the decorator of porcelain.
If we examine the colours found on both the wares to which we have
tentatively traced back the enamelled porcelain of the Chinese--the
enamels on glass on the one hand, and those on metal on the
other--taking in each case the earlier specimens as examples, we find on
the mosque lamps from Cairo little except a deep blue generally used as
a ground for a design which is outlined in an opaque iron red. On the
famous flask from Würzburg, now in the British Museum, for which a
‘Mesopotamian’ origin of the thirteenth century is claimed, a turquoise
blue relieved by gilding is the predominant note; there is also a
sparing use of yellow, of an opaque white, and, what is especially
interesting, of a fine pinkish red, which is possibly obtained from
gold. (The way in which this colour is shaded into the opaque white
reminds us of the similar use of the _rouge d’or_ in later times in
China.)
If, on the other hand, we turn to the earlier Chinese enamels on metal,
the so-called Ching-tai vases, attributed to the fifteenth century, we
find among the colours used an opaque iron red, a yellow, an opaque
white, and finally two kinds of blue, a turquoise and a full deep blue
that looks like a cobalt colour.[46]
Some time, then, during the sixteenth century, whether before or after
the accession of Wan-li (1572), the Chinese began to decorate the
surface of their porcelain with jewel-like enamels _appliqués_ to the
glaze. At first, apparently, these colours were confined to three: a
copper green, a yellow generally of a buff tint, probably containing
antimony as well as iron, and a purple derived from manganese. These are
the _San-tsai_ or three colours of the Chinese writers, and it will be
seen that they differ from the colour triad of our ‘painted glazes’
(painted, that is, on biscuit and reheated in the _demi grand feu_) in
that the copper silicate is of a turquoise blue in the latter, and in
the former of a full leafy green. The Chinese authorities further tell
us that a second scheme of decoration was given by the _Wu-tsai_ or the
five colours which were made up by the three already mentioned, with the
addition of an opaque red derived from the sesqui-oxide of iron
(otherwise known as hæmatite, bole or red ochre),[47] and finally of a
cobalt blue, _sous couverte_, surviving as it were from the earlier blue
and white ware, for, as we have mentioned, the use of the blue as an
enamel over the glaze belongs to a later period.
So much 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
[Illustration: _PLATE VII._ CHINESE]
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).
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-ching_[54] 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
[Illustration: _PLATE VIII._ CHINESE, BLUE AND WHITE WARE]
specimens in our collections, of a fine sapphire blue (the colour is
indeed often inclined to run), may perhaps be referred to this reign.
The demands for the court were very extensive, and if we are to trust
the list of articles quoted by Dr. Bushell from the Fou-liang annals,
the porcelain made for the palace during this period was, with the
exception of a little of that with a brown ground, confined to blue and
white ware.
LUNG-KING (1566-72).--The bad reputation of this emperor is reflected in
the porcelain of the time--indeed the erotic character of the decoration
is the one point noted in the annals. The mark of this reign is rarely
found. There is, however, in the British Museum a large square support
or plinth, decorated with a blue of magnificent sapphire hue, which
bears the Lung-king nien-hao.
WAN-LI (1572-1619).--Of the porcelain surviving from Ming times, a very
large proportion probably belongs to this reign. It was now that the
European trade was beginning to reach large proportions, and the
exportation both to India and Persia was greater than ever. It was a
time above all for the manufacture of large pieces, but we must not look
any longer for the refinement and scholarly traditions of earlier Ming
periods. Dr. Bushell tells us that large bowls of the Wan-li ware are
still in use in the shops and stalls of Pekin. For us the difficulty is
to distinguish the blue and white ware of this reign from that made for
exportation during the next half century, a period during which the
annals of the Chinese authorities are a blank. The reign of Wan-li is
above all the period during which the use of enamel colours became
prevalent, and now, for the first time, some of the ware made for the
palace was, in spite of the protests of the censor, so decorated. But we
will reserve what we have to say on the origin of Chinese enamelled ware
until we come to treat of the progress made in the reign of Kang-he.