HSÜAN TÊ [chch 2] (1426–1435)
In this short reign, which Chinese writers regard as the most brilliant
period of their porcelain industry, the number of kilns occupied with
the Imperial orders had increased to fifty-eight, the majority of them
being outside the Imperial factory and distributed among the private
factories. According to the _T’ao lu_,[16] the clay used at this
time was red and the ware like cinnabar, a statement which is difficult
to reconcile with the glowing description of the jade-like white altar
cups and other exquisite objects for which the reign was celebrated.
It is, of course, possible that a dark coloured body was employed in
some of the wares, as was done at other periods, or it may be that the
words are hyperbolically used to describe a porcelain of which the
exposed parts of the body assumed a red colour in the firing. This
latter peculiarity is noticeable on specimens of later Ming porcelain,
particularly the blue and white of the Chia Ching period. But in any
case a red biscuit cannot have been invariable or even characteristic
of the period, for no mention is made of such a feature in the _Po
wu yao lan_, which gives by far the fullest account of the Hsüan Tê
porcelain.
The description in the _Po wu yao lan_,[17] which seems to
have been generally accepted, and certainly was largely borrowed by
subsequent Chinese works, may be freely rendered as follows:
“Among the wares of the Hsüan Tê period there are stem-cups[18]
decorated with red fish. For these they used a powder made of red
precious stones from the West to paint the fish forms, and from the
body there rose up in relief in the firing the precious brilliance of
the fresh red ravishing the eye. The brown and blackish colours which
resulted from imperfect firing of the red are inferior. There were
also blue decorated wares, such as stem-cups with dragon pine and plum
designs, wine stem-cups with figure subjects[19] and lotus designs,
small cinnabar pots and large bowls in colour red like the sun, but
with white mouth rim, pickle pots and small pots with basket covers and
handles in the form of bamboo joints, all of which things were unknown
in ancient times. Again, there were beautiful objects of a useful kind,
all small and cleverly made with finely and accurately drawn designs.
The incense vases, trays and dishes[20] were made in large numbers, and
belong to a common class. The flat-sided jars with basket covers, and
the ornamented round pots with flanged[21] mouth for preserving honey,
are very beautiful and mostly decorated in colours (_wu ts’ai_). The
white cups, which have the character _t’an_ (altar) engraved inside the
bowl, are what are known as 'altar cups.’ The material of these things
is refined and the ware thick, and the form beautiful enough to be used
as elegant vases in the true scholar’s room. There are besides white
cups for tea with rounded body,[22] convex[23] base, thread-like foot,
bright and lustrous like jade, and with very finely engraved[24] dragon
and phœnix designs which are scarcely inferior to the altar cups. At
the bottom the characters _ta ming hsüan tê nien chih_[25] are secretly
engraved in the paste, and the texture of the glaze is uneven, like
orange peel.[26] How can even Ting porcelain compare with these? Truly
they are the most excellent porcelains of this reign, and unfortunately
there have not been many to be seen since then. Again, there are the
beautiful barrel-shaped seats, some with openwork ground, the designs
filled in with colours (_wu ts’ai_), gorgeous as cloud brocades, others
with solid ground filled in with colours in engraved floral designs, so
beautiful and brilliant as to dazzle the eye; both sorts have a deep
green (_ch’ing_) background. Others have blue (_lan_) ground,
filled in with designs in colours (_wu ts’ai_), like ornament carved
in cobalt blue (_shih ch’ing_, lit. stone blue). There is also blue
decoration on a white ground and crackled grounds like ice. The form
and ornament of these various types do not seem to have been known
before this period.”
[Illustration: Plate 60.--Reputed Hsüan Tê Porcelain.
Fig. 1.--Flask with blue decoration, reputed to be Hsüan Tê
period. Height 3¼ inches. _British Museum_.
Fig. 2.--Brush Rest. (?) Chang Ch’ien on a log raft; partly
biscuit. Inscribed with a stanza of verse and the Hsüan Tê mark.
Length 6 inches.
_Grandidier Collection._]
[Illustration: Plate 61.--Porcelain with _san ts’ai_ glazes
on the biscuit.
Fig. 1.--Wine Jar with pierced casing, the Taoist Immortals
paying court to the God of Longevity, turquoise blue ground.
Fifteenth century. Height 11½ inches. _Eumorfopoulos
Collection._
Fig. 2.--Screen with design in relief, horsemen on a mountain
path, dark blue ground. About 1500. Height 14 inches. _Benson
Collection._]
It will be seen from the above that the Hsüan Tê porcelains included
a fine white, blue and white and polychrome painted wares, underglaze
red painted wares, and crackle. The last mentioned is further specified
in the _Ch’ing pi tsang_ as having “eel’s blood lines,”[27] and
almost rivalling the Kuan and Ju wares. The ware was thick and strong,
and the glaze had the peculiar undulating appearance (variously
compared to chicken skin, orange peel, millet grains, or a wind ruffled
surface) which was deliberately produced on the eighteenth century
porcelains.
Another surface peculiarity shared by the Hsüan Tê and Yung Lo wares
was “palm eye” (_tsung yen_) markings, which Bushell explains as
holes in the glaze due to air bubbles. It is hard to see how these can
have been other than a defect. Probably both these and the orange peel
effects were purely fortuitous at this time.
Of the various types which we have enumerated, the white wares need
little comment. The glaze was no doubt thick and lustrous like mutton
fat jade, and though Hsiang in his Album usually describes the white of
his examples as “white like driven snow,” it is worthy of note that in
good imitations of the ware particular care seems to have been given to
impart a distinct greenish tint to the glaze.
The honours of the period appear to have been shared by the “blue and
white” and red painted wares. Out of twenty examples illustrated in
Hsiang’s Album, no fewer than twelve are decorated chiefly in red,
either covering the whole or a large part of the surface or painted
in designs, among which three fishes occur with monotonous frequency.
The red in every case is called _chi hung_, and it is usually
qualified by the illuminating comparison with “ape’s blood,” and in one
case it is even redder than that!
The expression _chi hung_ has evidently been handed down by oral
traditions, for there is no sort of agreement among Chinese writers
on the form of the first character. The _T’ao lu_ uses the character
[chch], which means “sacrificial,” and Bushell[28] explains this “as
the colour of the sacrificial cups which were employed by the Emperor
in the worship of the Sun.” Hsiang uses the character [chch] which
means “massed, accumulated.” And others use the character [chch] which
means “sky clearing,” and is also applied to blue in the sense of the
“blue of the sky after rain.” In the oft quoted list of the Yung Chêng
porcelains we find the item, “Imitations of Hsüan _chi hung_ wares,
including two kinds, _hsien hung_ (fresh red) and _pao shih hung_
(ruby red).” There can be little doubt that both these were shades of
underglaze red derived from copper oxide, a colour with which we are
quite familiar from the eighteenth century and later examples.
For in another context we find the _hsien hung_ contrasted with
_fan hung_, which is the usual term for overglaze iron red,
and the description already given of the application of _pao shih
hung_ leaves no doubt whatever that it was an underglaze colour. The
two terms are probably fanciful names for two variations of the same
colour, or perhaps for two different applications of it, for we know
that it was used as a pigment for brushwork as well as in the form of a
ground colour incorporated in the glaze. The secret of the colour seems
to have been well kept, and the general impression prevailing outside
the factories was that its tint and brilliancy were due to powdered
rubies, the red precious stone from the West which gave the name to the
_pao shih hung_.[29] It is known that in some cases such stones
as cornelian (_ma nao_) have been incorporated in the porcelain
glazes in China to increase the limpidity of the glaze. This is reputed
to have happened in the case of the Ju yao, but neither cornelian nor
ruby could serve in any way as a colouring agent, as their colour would
be dissipated in the heat of the furnace. The real colouring agent of
the _chi hung_ is protoxide of copper. If there were nothing else
to prove this, it would be clear from the fact hinted in the _Po wu
yao lan_ that the failures came out a brownish or blackish tint.
This colour has always proved a difficult one to manage, and in the
early part of the last dynasty, when it was freely used after the
manner of the Hsüan Tê potters, the results were most unequal, varying
from a fine blood red to maroon and brown, and even to a blackish tint.
The peculiar merits of the Hsüan Tê red were probably due in some
measure to the clay of which the ware was composed, and which contained
some natural ingredient favourable to the development of the red. At
any rate, we are told[30] that in the Chia Ching period (1522–1566)
“the earth used for the _hsien hung_ ran short.”
Among the favourite designs[31] expressed in the Hsüan Tê red were
three fishes, three fruits,[32] three funguses, and the character
_fu_ (happiness) repeated five times.[33] All these are mentioned
among the Yung Chêng imitations. A good idea of the fish design is
given by a cylindrical vase in the Franks Collection, which is plain
except for two fishes in underglaze red of good colour, and rising in
slight relief in the glaze. The glaze itself is of that faint celadon
green which was apparently regarded as a necessary feature of the
Hsüan Tê copies, and which incidentally seems to be favourable to the
development of the copper red. The _sang de bœuf_ red of the last
dynasty is avowedly a revival of the Hsüan Tê red in its use as a glaze
colour. Indeed, certain varieties of the _sang de bœuf_ class
are still distinguished as _chi hung_. The large bowls, “red as
the sun and white at the mouth rim,” as mentioned in the _Po wu yao
lan_, have a counterpart in the large bowl of the last dynasty with
_sang de bœuf_ glaze, which, flowing downwards, usually left a
colourless white band at the mouth.
The Hsüan Tê period extended only to ten years, and specimens of Hsüan
red are excessively rare to-day, even in China. It is doubtful if a
genuine specimen exists outside the Middle Kingdom, but with the help
of the old Chinese descriptions and the clever imitations of a later
date,[34] there is no difficulty in imagining the vivid splendours of
the “precious stone red” of this brilliant period.
Among the “blue and white” wares of all periods, the Hsüan Tê
porcelain is unanimously voted the first place by Chinese writers, and
its excellence is ascribed principally to the superior quality of an
imported mineral variously described as _su-ni-p’o_, _su-p’o-ni_ and
_su-ma-ni_. These outlandish names are, no doubt, attempts to render
in Chinese the foreign name of the material, which was itself probably
the name of the place or people whence it was exported. There is little
doubt that this mysterious substance was the same species as the
Mohammedan blue (_hui hui ch’ing_) of the following century. Indeed,
this latter name is applied to it in Hsiang’s Album. The Mohammedan
blue was obtained from Arab traders, and its use for painting on
pottery had been familiar in the Near East, in Persia and Syria for
instance, at least as early as the twelfth century.[35] The _su-ni-p’o_
blue was no doubt imported in the form of mineral cobalt, and though
there was no lack of this mineral in the neighbourhood of Ching-tê
Chên, the foreign material was of superior quality. It was, however,
not only expensive but unsuited for use in a pure state. If applied by
itself, it had a tendency to run in the firing, and it was necessary
to blend it with proportions of the native mineral varying from one
in ten for the finest quality to four in six for the medium quality.
The native mineral used by itself tended to be heavy and dull in tone,
owing to its inability to stand the intense heat of the kiln, and was
only employed alone on the coarser wares. The supply of Mohammedan
blue was uncertain and spasmodic. It ceased to arrive at the end of
the Hsüan Tê period, and it was not renewed till the next century (see
p. 29). Its nature, too, seems to have varied, for we are expressly
told that the Hsüan Tê blue was pale in tone while the Mohammedan
blue of the sixteenth century was dark. Possibly, however, this was
not so much due to the nature of the material as to the method of its
application, for Chinese writers are by no means unanimous about the
paleness of the Hsüan Tê blue. The _Ch’ing pi ts’ang_, for instance,
states that “they used _su-p’o-ni_ blue and painted designs of dragons,
phœnixes, flowers, birds, insects, fish and similar forms, deep and
thickly heaped and piled and very lovely.”
Authentic specimens of Hsüan Tê blue and white are virtually unknown,
but the mark of the period is one of the commonest on Chinese porcelain
of relatively modern date. In most cases this spurious dating means
nothing more than that the period named was one of high repute; but
there is a type of blue and white, usually bearing the period mark of
Hsüan Tê, which is so mannered and characteristic that one feels the
certainty that this really represents one kind at least of the Hsüan
porcelain. It is usually decorated in close floral scrolls, and the
blue is light dappled with darker shades, which are often literally
“heaped and piled” (_tui t’o_) over the paler substratum.
I have seen examples of this style belonging to various periods, mostly
eighteenth century, but some certainly late Ming[36] (see Plate 67,
Fig. 4). Seven examples of Hsüan blue and white porcelain are figured
in Hsiang’s Album,[37] comprising an ink pallet, a vase shaped like a
section of bamboo, a goose-shaped wine jar, a vase with an elephant
on the cover, a tea cup, a sacrificial vessel, and a lamp with four
nozzles. In five of these the blue is confined to slight pencilled
borders, merely serving to set off the white ground, which is compared
to driven snow. The glaze is rich and thick, and of uneven surface,
rising in slight tubercles likened to “grains of millet.” This is the
“orange skin” glaze. The blue in each case is _hui hu[38] ta ch’ing_
(deep Mohammedan blue). Of the two remaining instances, one is painted
with a dragon in clouds, and the other with “dragon pines,” and in the
latter case the glaze is described as “lustrous like mutton fat jade,”
and the blue as “of intensity and brilliance to dazzle the eye.”
The impression conveyed by all these examples is that they represent a
type quite different from that described as “heaped and piled,” a type
in which delicate pencilling was the desideratum, the designs being
slight and giving full play to the white porcelain ground. It is, in
fact, far closer in style to the delicately painted Japanese Hirado
porcelain than to the familiar Chinese blue and white of the K’ang Hsi
period.
Plate 60 illustrates a little flask-shaped vase in the Franks
Collection, which purports to be a specimen of Hsüan Tê blue and white
porcelain. It has a thick, “mutton fat” glaze of faint greenish tinge,
and is decorated with a freely drawn peach bough in underglaze blue
which has not developed uniformly in the firing. The colour in places
is deep, soft and brilliant, but elsewhere it has assumed too dark a
hue.[39] Its certificate is engraved in Chinese fashion on the box
into which it has been carefully fitted--_hsüan tz’ŭ pao yüeh p’ing_,
“precious moon vase of Hsüan porcelain”--attested by the signature
Tzŭ-ching, the studio name of none other than Hsiang Yüan-p’ien, whose
Album has been so often quoted. Without attaching too much weight to
this inscription, which is a matter easily arranged by the Chinese,
there is nothing in the appearance of this quite unpretentious little
vase which is inconsistent with an early Ming origin.
On the same plate is a brush rest in form of a log raft, on which is a
seated figure, probably the celebrated Chang-Ch’ien, floating down the
Yellow River. The design recalls a rare silver cup of the Yüan dynasty,
which was illustrated in the _Burlington Magazine_ (December,
1912). Here the material is porcelain biscuit with details glazed and
touched with blue, and the _nien hao_ of Hsüan Tê is visible on
the upper part of the log beside two lines of poetry. Whether this
brush rest really belongs to the period indicated or not, it is a rare
and interesting specimen. Two other possible examples of Hsüan Tê blue
and white are described on p. 32.
[Illustration: PLATE 62
Barrel shaped Garden Seat: porcelain with coloured glazes on the
biscuit, the designs outlined in slender fillets of clay. A lotus
scroll between an upper band of clouds and a lower band of horses
in flying gallop and sea waves. Lion mask handles. About 1500
A.D.
Height 14¼ inches. _British Museum._]
As to the other types of Hsüan ware named in the _Po wu yao lan_,
with one exception I can find no exact counterpart of them in existing
specimens, though parts of the descriptions are illustrated by examples
of apparently later date. Thus the form of the white tea cups, “with
rounded body, convex base, and thread-like foot,” is seen in such bowls
as Fig. 1 of Plate 74, which is proved by its mount to be not later
than the sixteenth century. Other examples of these bowls will be
discussed later. They are characterised by a convexity in the centre
which cannot be shown in reproductions.
The secret decoration (_an hua_) consists of designs faintly traced
usually with a sharp-pointed instrument in the body and under the
glaze. There is an excellent example of this in a high-footed cup in
the Franks Collection which has the Hsüan Tê mark, the usual faintly
greenish glaze, beneath which is a delicately etched lotus scroll
so fine that it might easily be overlooked and is quite impossible
to reproduce by photographic methods. It is, no doubt, an early
eighteenth-century copy of Hsüan ware.
The one exception mentioned above is the type represented by the
“barrel-shaped seats.” The description of these leaves no room for
doubt that they belonged to a fairly familiar class of Ming ware, whose
strength and solidity has preserved it in considerable quantity where
the more delicate porcelains have disappeared. Plate 62 gives a good
idea of the Ming barrel-shaped garden seat, “with solid ground filled
in with colours in engraved floral designs.” The other kind, “with
openwork ground, the designs filled in with colours (_wu ts’ai_),
gorgeous as cloud brocades,” must have been in the style of Plate 61.
These styles of decoration are more familiar to us on potiche-shaped
wine jars and high-shouldered vases than on garden seats, but the type
is one and the same. Quite a series of these vessels was exhibited at
the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910, and they are fully described
in the catalogue. Some had an outer casing in openwork; others had
the designs outlined in raised threads of clay, which contained the
colours like the ribbons of cloisonné enamel[40]; in others, again,
the patterns were incised with a point. The common feature of all of
them was that the details of the pattern were defined by some emphatic
method of outlining which served at the same time to limit the flow
of the colours. The colours themselves consist of glazes containing a
considerable proportion of lead, and tinted in the usual fashion with
metallic oxides. They include a deep violet blue (sometimes varying to
black or brown), leaf green, turquoise, yellow,[41] and a colourless
glaze or a white slip which served as white colour, though at times the
white was represented merely by leaving the unglazed body or biscuit to
appear. These coloured glazes differ from the on-glaze painted enamels
in that they are applied direct to the body of the ware, and are fired
at a relatively high temperature in the cooler parts of the great
kiln, a circumstance expressed by the French in the concise phrase,
_couleurs de demi-grand feu_.[42]
The central ornament consisted chiefly of figures of sages or deities
in rocky landscape, or seated under pine trees amid clouds, dragons in
clouds, or beautiful lotus designs; and these were contained by various
borders, such as floral scrolls, gadroons, _ju-i_ head patterns,
fungus scrolls, and symbols hanging in jewelled pendants. As a rule,
the larger areas of these vases are invested with a ground colour and
the design filled in with contrasting tints. Sometimes the scheme of
decoration includes several bands of ornament, and in this case--as
on Plate 62--more than one ground colour is used. The _Po wu yao lan_
speaks of green (_ch’ing_) and dark blue (_lan_) grounds, and existing
specimens indicate that the dark violet blue was the commonest ground
colour. Next to this, turquoise blue is the most frequently seen; but
besides these there is a dark variety of the violet which is almost
black, and another which is dark brown, both of which colours are based
on cobaltiferous oxide of manganese. It has already been observed that
this type of decoration was frequently used on a pottery body as well
as on porcelain.
The question of the antiquity of the above method of polychrome
decoration is complicated by the contradictory accounts which Dr.
Bushell has given of a very celebrated example, the statuette of
the goddess Kuan-yin in the temple named Pao kuo ssŭ at Peking.
The following reference to this image occurs in the _T’ung ya_,
published in the reign of Ch’ung Chêng (1625–1643): “The Chün Chou
transmutation wares (_yao pien_) are not uncommon to-day. The Kuan-yin
in the Pao kuo ssŭ is a _yao pien_.” Dr. Bushell, who visited the
temple several times, gives a minute description of the image, which
contains the following passage[43]: “The figure is loosely wrapped in
flowing drapery of purest and bluest turquoise tint, with the wide
sleeves of the robe bordered with black and turned back in front to
show the yellow lining; the upper part of the cloak is extended up
behind over the head in the form of a plaited hood, which is also
lined with canary yellow.” To the ordinary reader, such a description
would be conclusive. A fine example of Ming porcelain, he would say,
decorated with the typical coloured glazes on the biscuit. Bushell’s
comment, however, is that the “colours are of the same type as those
of the finest flower pots and saucers of the Chün Chou porcelain of
the Sung dynasty.” It should be said that the temple bonzes insist
that they can trace the origin of the image back to the thirteenth
century. If these are indeed the typical Chün Chou glazes, then all
our previous information on that factory, including Bushell’s own
contributions, is worthless. In another work,[44] however, the same
writer states that it (the image in question) is “really enamelled in
'five colours’--turquoise, yellow, crimson, red brown and black.” This
is precisely what we should have expected, and it can only be imagined
that Bushell in the other passage was influenced by the statement in
the _T’ung ya_ that it was a furnace transmutation piece, a statement
probably based on the superstition that it was a miraculous likeness
of the goddess, who herself descended into the kiln and moulded its
features. As to the other temple tradition, that it was made in the
thirteenth century, it is not necessary to take that any more seriously
than the myth concerning its miraculous origin, which derives from the
same source.
It is hardly necessary to state that all the existing specimens of this
class (and they are fairly numerous) do not belong to the Hsüan Tê
period. Indeed, it is unlikely that more than a very small percentage
of them were made in this short reign. Whether the style survived the
Ming dynasty is an open question; but it is safe to assume that it was
largely used in the sixteenth century.
The discussion of this group of polychrome porcelain leads naturally
to the vexed question of the introduction of enamel painting over the
glaze. By the latter I mean the painting of designs on the finished
white glaze in vitrifiable enamels, which were subsequently fixed in
the gentle heat of the muffle kiln (_lu_)--_couleurs de petit feu_, as
the French have named them. No help can be got from the phraseology of
the Chinese, for they use _wu ts’ai_ or _wu sê_ (lit. five colours)
indifferently for all kinds of polychrome decoration, regardless of
the number of colours involved or the mode of application. There is,
however, no room for doubt that the delicate enamel painting, for which
the reign of Ch’êng Hua (1465–1487) was celebrated, was executed with
the brush over the fired glaze. It is inconceivable that the small,
eggshell wine cups with peony flowers and a hen and chicken “instinct
with life and movement” could have been limned by any other method.
If this is the case, then what could the Chinese writers mean when
they contrasted the _wu ts’ai_ ornament of the Hsüan Tê and Ch’êng
Hua periods, but that the same process of painting was in use in both
reigns? The Ch’êng Hua colours were more artistic because they were
thin and delicately graded, while the Hsüan Tê _wu ts’ai_ were too
thickly applied.[45] For this reason, if for no other, we may rightly
infer that painting in on-glaze enamels was practised in the Hsüan Tê
period, if, indeed, it had not been long in use.[46]
There is another and an intermediate method of polychrome decoration
in which the low-fired enamels (_de petit feu_) are applied direct to
the biscuit, as in the case of the _demi-grand feu_ colours, but with
the difference that they are fixed in the muffle kiln. This method was
much employed on the late Ming and early Ch’ing porcelains, and it will
be discussed later; but it is mentioned here because there are several
apparent examples of it in Hsiang’s Album, one[47] of which is dated
Hsüan Tê. The example in question is a model of the celebrated Nanking
pagoda, and it is described as _wu ts’ai_, the structure being white,
the roofs green, the rails red, and the doors yellow, while the date
is painted in blue. I have hesitated to assume that this is intended
to represent an on-glaze painted piece, though there is much in the
description to indicate such a conclusion; but it is certainly either
this or a member of the class under discussion, viz. decorated in
enamels of the muffle kiln applied to the biscuit.[48] In either case
it proves the knowledge of vitrifiable enamels at this period to all
who accept the evidence of Hsiang’s Album.
Examples of Hsüan Tê polychrome porcelain enumerated in the _T’ao
shuo_ included wine pots in the form of peaches, pomegranates,
double gourds, a pair of mandarin ducks and geese; washing dishes (for
brushes) of “gong-shaped outline,” with moulded fish and water-weeds,
with sunflowers and with lizards; and lamp brackets, “rain-lamps,”
vessels for holding bird’s food, and cricket[49] pots (see vol. i, p.
188).
Specimens of on-glaze painted porcelain with the Hsüan Tê mark are
common enough, but I have not yet seen one which could be accepted
without reserve. Perhaps the nearest to the period is a specimen in the
Franks Collection, a box made of the lower part of a square vase which
had been broken and cut down. It was fitted with a finely designed
bronze cover in Japan, and it is strongly painted in underglaze blue
and the usual green, yellow, red and purple on-glaze enamels. The mark
is in a fine dark blue, and the porcelain has all the character of a
Ming specimen.
There is, in the same collection, a dish of a different type, but
with the Hsüan Tê mark in Mohammedan blue and other evidences of Ming
origin. The glaze is of a faintly greenish white and of considerable
thickness and lustre, and the design consists of lotus scrolls in gold.
Painting in gold in the Hsüan Tê period is mentioned in the _T’ao
shuo_[50] in connection with the pots for holding the fighting
crickets alluded to above.