THE TECHNIQUE OF THE MING PORCELAIN
Although the processes involved in the various kinds of decoration and
in the different wares have been discussed in their several places, a
short summary of those employed in the manufacture of the Ching-tê Chên
porcelain during the Ming period will be found convenient. The bulk of
the materials required were found in the surrounding districts, if not
actually in the Fou-liang Hsien. The best kaolin (or porcelain earth)
was mined in the Ma-ts’ang mountains until the end of the sixteenth
century, when the supply was exhausted and recourse was had to another
deposit at Wu-mên-t’o. The quality of the Wu-mên-t’o kaolin was
first-rate, but as the cost of transport was greater and the manager
of the Imperial factory refused to pay a proportionately higher price,
very little was obtained. The material for the large dragon bowls, and
presumably for the other vessels of abnormal size, was obtained from
Yü-kan and Wu-yüan and mixed with powdered stone (_shih mo_) from
the Hu-t’ien district. Other kaolins, brought from Po-yang Hsien and
the surrounding parts, were used by the private potters, not being
sufficiently fine for the Imperial wares.
The porcelain stone, which combined with the kaolin to form the two
principal ingredients of true porcelain, came from the neighbourhoods
of Yü-kan and Wu-yüan, where it was pounded and purified in mills
worked by the water power of the mountains, arriving at Ching-tê Chên
in the form of briquettes. Hence the name _petuntse_,[214] which,
like kaolin, has passed into our own language, and the term _shih
mo_ (powdered stone) used above.
The glaze earth (_yu t’u_) in various qualities was supplied from
different places. Thus the Ch’ang-ling material was used for the blue
or green (_ch’ing_) and the yellow glazes, the Yi-k’êng for the pure
white porcelain, and the T’ao-shu-mu for white porcelain and for “blue
and white.” This glazing material was softened with varying quantities
of ashes of lime burnt with ferns or other frondage. Neither time nor
toil was spared in the preparation of the Imperial porcelains, and
according to the _T’ung-ya_[215] the vessels were, at one time at any
rate, dried for a whole year after they had been shaped and before
finishing them off on the lathe. When finished off on the lathe they
were glazed and dried, and if there were any inequalities in the
covering they were glazed again. Furthermore, if any fault appeared
after firing they were put on the lathe, ground smooth, and reglazed
and refired.
It was not the usual custom with Chinese potters to harden the ware
with a slight preliminary firing before proceeding to decorate and
apply the glaze, and consequently such processes as underglaze painting
in blue, embossing, etc., were undergone while the body was still
relatively soft and required exceedingly careful handling. The glaze
was applied in several ways--by dipping in a tub of glazing liquid
(i.e. glaze material finely levigated and mixed with water), by
painting the glaze on with a brush, or by blowing it on from a bamboo
tube, the end of which was covered with a piece of tightly stretched
gauze. One of the last operations was the finishing off of the foot,
which was hollowed out and trimmed and the mark added (if it was to be
in blue, as was usually the case) and covered with a spray of glaze.
To the connoisseur the finish of the foot is full of meaning. It is
here he gets a glimpse of the body which emerges at the raw edge of
the rim, and by feeling it he can tell whether the material is finely
levigated or coarse-grained. The foot rim of the Ming porcelains is
plainly finished without the beading or grooves of the K’ang Hsi wares,
which were evidently designed to fit a stand[216]; and the raw edge
discloses a ware which is almost always of fine white texture and close
grain (often almost unctuous to the touch), though the actual surface
generally assumes a brownish tinge in the heat of the kiln. The base
is often unglazed in the case of large jars and vases, rarely in the
cups, bowls, dishes, or wine pots, except among the coarser types of
export porcelain. A little sand or grit adhering to the foot rim and
radiating lines under the base caused by a jerky movement of the lathe
are signs of hasty finish, which occur not infrequently on the export
wares. The importance of the foot in the eyes of the Chinese collector
may be judged from the following extract from the _Shih ch’ing jih
cha_[217]:--
“Distinguish porcelain by the vessel’s foot. The Yung Lo
'press-hand’ bowls have a glazed bottom but a sandy foot;
Hsüan ware altar cups have 'cauldron’[218] bottom (i.e. convex
beneath) and wire-like foot; Chia Ching ware flat cups decorated
with fish have a 'loaf’ centre[219] (i.e. convex inside) and
rounded foot. All porcelain vessels issue from the kiln with
bottoms and feet which can testify to the fashion of the firing.”
It is not always easy unaided by illustration to interpret the Chinese
metaphors, but it is a matter of observation that many of the Sung
bowls, for instance, have a conical finish under the base, and that the
same pointed finish appears on some of the early Ming types, such as
the red bowls with Yung Lo mark. The “loaf centre” of the Chia Ching
bowls seems to refer to the convexity described on p. 35. The blue and
white conical bowls with Yung Lo mark (see p. 6) have, as a rule, a
small glazed base and a relatively wide unglazed foot rim.
But this digression on the nether peculiarities of the different wares
has led us away from the subject of glaze. The proverbial thickness and
solidity of the early Ming glazes, which are likened to “massed lard,”
are due to the piling up of successive coatings of glaze to ensure a
perfect covering for the body, and the same process was responsible
for the undulating appearance of the surface, which rose up in small
rounded elevations “like grains of millet” and displayed corresponding
depressions.[220] This uneven effect, due to an excess of glaze, was
much prized by the Chinese connoisseurs, who gave it descriptive
names like “millet markings,” “chicken skin,” or “orange peel,” and
the potters of later periods imitated it freely and often to excess.
Porcelain glazes are rarely dead white, and, speaking generally, it
may be said that the qualifying tint in the Ming period was greenish.
Indeed, this is the prevailing tone of Chinese glazes, but it is
perhaps accentuated by the thickness of the Ming glaze. This greenish
tinge is most noticeable when the ware is ornamented with delicate
traceries in pure white clay or slip under the glaze.
[Illustration: PLATE 84
Vase of baluster form with small mouth (_mei p’ing_).
Porcelain with coloured glazes on the biscuit, the designs
outlined in slender fillets of clay. A meeting of sages in a
landscape beneath an ancient pine tree, the design above their
heads representing the mountain mist. On the shoulders are large
_ju-i_ shaped lappets enclosing lotus sprays, with pendent
jewels between: fungus (_ling chih_) designs on the neck.
Yellow glaze under the base. A late example of this style of
ware, probably seventeenth century.
Height 11 inches.
_Salting Collection_ (_Victoria and Albert Museum_).]
As for the shape of the various Ming wares, much has already been
said in reference to the various lists of Imperial porcelains, more
particularly with regard to the household wares such as dishes,
bowls, wine pots, boxes, etc. No precise description, however, is
given in these lists of the actual forms of the vases, and we have
to look elsewhere for these. There are, however, extracts from books
on vases[221] and on the implements of the scholar’s table in the
_T’ao shuo_ and the _T’ao lu_, in which a large number of shapes are
enumerated. Observation of actual specimens shows that bronze and metal
work supplied the models for the more elaborate forms which would
be made, partly or wholly, in moulds. These metallic forms, so much
affected by the Chinese _literatus_, though displaying great cleverness
in workmanship and elaboration of detail, are not so pleasing to the
unprejudiced Western eye as the simple wheel-made forms of which the
Chinese potter was a perfect master. Of the latter, the most common in
Ming porcelains are the potiche-shaped covered jar (Plate 80) and the
high-shouldered baluster vase with small neck and narrow mouth (Plate
84), which was known as _mei p’ing_ or prunus jar from its suitability
for holding a flowering branch of that decorative flower. Next to
these, the most familiar Ming forms are the massive and often clumsy
vases of double gourd shape, or with a square body and gourd-shaped
neck, bottles with tapering neck and globular body, ovoid jars,
melon-shaped pots with lobed sides, jars with rounded body and short
narrow neck, all of which occur in the export wares. These are, as a
rule, strongly built and of good white material, and if the shoulders
are contracted (as is nearly always the case) they are made in
two sections, or more in the case of the double forms, with no pains
taken to conceal the seam. Indeed, elaborate finish had no part in the
construction of these strong, rugged forms, which are matched by the
bold design and free drawing of the decoration. I may add that sets of
vases hardly come within the Ming period. They are an un-Chinese idea,
and evolved in response to European demands. The mantelpiece sets of
five (three covered jars and two beakers) are a development of the
mid-seventeenth century when the Dutch traders commanded the market.
The Chinese altar-set of five ritual utensils is the nearest approach
to a uniform set, consisting as it did of an incense burner, two flower
vases, and two pricket candlesticks, often with the same decoration
throughout.
The Ming bowls vary considerably in form, from the wide-mouthed,
small-footed bowl (_p’ieh_) of the early period to the rounded forms,
such as Fig. 1 of Plate 74. In some cases the sides are moulded in
compartments, and the rims sharply everted. Others again are very
shallow, with hollow base and no foot rim; others follow the shape
of the Buddhist alms bowl with rounded sides and contracted mouth;
and there are large bowls for gold-fish (_yü kang_), usually with
straight sides slightly expanding towards the upper part and broad
flat rims, cisterns, hot-water bowls with double bottom and plug hole
beneath, square bowls (Plate 66, Fig. 1) for scraps and slops, and
large vessels, probably of punch-bowl form, known as “wine seas.” The
commonest type of Chinese dish is saucer-shaped, but they had also
flat plates bounded by straight sides and a narrow rim, which has no
relation to the broad, canted rim of the European plate constructed to
carry salt and condiments.
The Chinese use porcelain plaques for inlaying in furniture and
screens, or mounting as pictures, and there are, besides, many objects
of purely native design, such as barrel-shaped garden seats for summer
use, cool pillows, and hat stands with spherical top and tall, slender
stems. But it was only natural that when they began to cater for the
foreign market many foreign forms should have crept in, such as the
Persian ewer with pear-shaped body, long elegant handle and spout, the
latter usually joined to the neck by an ornamental stay: the hookah
bowl: weights with wide base and ball-shaped tops for keeping down
Indian mats, etc., when: spread on the ground; and at the end of the
Ming period a few European shapes, such as jugs and tankards. In the
Ch’ing dynasty European forms were made wholesale.
* * * * *
In considering the colours used in the decoration, we naturally take
first the limited number which were developed in the full heat of
the porcelain furnace, the _couleurs de grand feu_ of the French
classification. These were either incorporated in the glazing material
or painted on the porcelain body and protected by the glaze. Chief
among them was blue, which we have already discussed in its various
qualities. The Mohammedan blue--the _su-ni-p’o_ of the Hsüan Tê period
and the _hui hui ch’ing_ of the reigns of Chêng Tê and Chia Ching--was
an imported material of pre-eminent quality but of uncertain supply.
It was supplemented--and, indeed, usually blended--with the native
mineral[222] which was found in several places. Thus the _po-t’ang_
blue (so called from a place name) was found in the district of
Lo-p’ing Hsien in the Jao-chou Fu; but the mines were closed after a
riot in the Chia Ching period, and its place was taken by a blue known
as _shih-tzŭ ch’ing_ (stone, or mineral, blue) from the prefecture of
Jui-chou in Kiangsi. According to Bushell[223] the _po-t’ang_ blue was
very dark in colour, and it was sometimes known as _Fo t’ou ch’ing_
(Buddha’s head blue) from the traditional colour of the hair of Buddha.
Another material used for painting porcelain was the _hei chê shih_
(black red mineral) from Hsin-chien in Lu-ling, which was also called
_wu ming tzŭ_. It was evidently a cobaltiferous ore of manganese and a
blue-producing mineral, doubtless the same as the _wu ming i_ (nameless
wonder), which we have already found in use as a name for cobalt.
Much confusion exists, in Chinese works, on the subject of these blues,
and it is stated in one place that the “Buddha head blue” was a variety
of the _wu ming i_, which would make the _po t’ang_ blue and the _wu
ming i_ and the _wu ming tzŭ_ one and the same thing. In effect they
were the same species of mineral, and the local distinctions are of no
account at the present day except in so far as they explain the variety
of tints in the Ming blue and white. It is, however, interesting to
learn from a note on Mohammedan blue in the K’ang Hsi Encyclopædia
that the native mineral, when carefully prepared, was very like the
Mohammedan blue in tint.
All these blues were used either for painting under the glaze or for
mixing with the glaze to form ground colours or monochromes, which
varied widely in tint, according to the quantity and quality of the
cobalt, from dark violet blue (_chi ch’ing_) through pale and
dark shades of the ordinary blue colour to slaty blue and lavender.
Some of them--notably the lavender and the dark violet blue--are
often associated with crackle, being used as an overglaze covering a
greyish white crackled porcelain. This treatment of the surface is
well illustrated by a small covered jar in the British Museum with a
dark violet blue apparently uncrackled but covering a crackled glaze.
Two lavender blue bowls in the Hippisley Collection with the Chêng Tê
mark are similarly crackled. Other Ming blue monochromes are a small
pot found in Borneo and now in the British Museum with a dark blue of
the ordinary tint used in painted wares, and a wine pot in the same
collection with dragon spout and handle of a peculiar slaty lavender
tint strewn with black specks, the colour evidently due to a strain of
manganese in the cobalt.
Next in importance to the blue is the underglaze red derived from
copper, which was discussed at length in connection with the Hsüan Tê
porcelains.[224] Its various tints, described as _hsien hung_ (fresh
red), _pao shih hung_ (ruby red), and cinnabar bowls “red as the
sun,” are, we may be sure, more or less accidental varieties of the
capricious copper red. The same mineral produced the _sang de bœuf_,
maroon and liver reds, and probably the peach bloom[225] of the K’ang
Hsi and later porcelains.
Other colours incorporated in the high-fired glaze in the Ming period
are the pea green (_tou ch’ing_) or celadon, and the lustrous brown
(_tzŭ chin_) which varied from coffee colour to that of old gold. Both
of these groups derived their tint from iron oxide, carried in the
medium of ferruginous earth. The use of two or more of these coloured
glazes on one piece is a type of polychrome which was doubtless used on
the Ming as on the later porcelains.
The glazes fired at a lower temperature, in the cooler parts of the
great kiln, and known for that reason as _couleurs de demi-grand feu_,
include turquoise (_ts’ui sê_), made from a preparation of old copper
(_ku t’ung_) and nitre; bright yellow (_chin huang_), composed of 1⅕
oz. of antimony mixed with 16 oz. of pulverised lead; bright green
(_chin lü_), composed of 1⅖ oz. of pulverised copper, 6 oz. of powdered
quartz and 16 oz. of pulverised lead; purple (_tzŭ sê_), composed of 1
oz. of cobaltiferous ore of manganese, 6 oz. of powdered quartz and 16
oz. of pulverised lead. These colours, melting as they did at a lower
temperature than that required to vitrify the porcelain body, had to be
applied to an already fired porcelain “biscuit.”[226]
The irregular construction of the Chinese kilns resulted in a great
variety of firing conditions, of which the Chinese potter made good
use; so that, by a judicious arrangement of the wares, glazes which
required a comparatively low temperature were fired in the same kiln
as those which needed the same heat as the porcelain body itself. The
glazes just enumerated are familiar from the large covered jars, vases,
garden seats, etc., with designs raised, carved, or pierced in outline,
many of which date from the fifteenth century.[227] Their manufacture
continued throughout the Ming period, both in porcelain and pottery,
and in the latter, at any rate, continued into the Ch’ing dynasty.
Another group of glazes applied likewise to the biscuit and fired in
the temperate parts of the kiln differs from the last mentioned in its
greater translucency.[228] These are the _san ts’ai_ or three colours,
viz. green, yellow and aubergine, all of which contain a considerable
proportion of lead, and differ little in appearance from the on-glaze
enamels of the muffle kiln. They were used either as monochromes, plain
or covering incised designs, or in combination to wash over the spaces
between the outlines of a pattern which had been incised or painted on
the biscuit.
Finally, the enamels of the _Wan li wu ts’ai_,[229] overglaze
colours used in addition to underglaze blue, were composed of a
vitreous flux coloured with a minute quantity of metallic oxide. The
flux, being a glass containing a high percentage of lead, was fusible
at such a low temperature that it was not possible to fire them in the
large kiln. Consequently these enamels were painted on to the finished
glaze, a process which greatly increased the freedom of design, and
fired in a small “muffle” or enameller’s kiln, where the requisite heat
to melt the flux and fix the colours could be easily obtained.
Though the _T’ao shuo_, in the section dealing with Ming technique,
makes a general allusion to painting in colours on the glaze, the only
specific reference to any colour of the muffle kiln, excepting gold,
is to the red obtained from sulphate of iron (_fan hung sê_). This, we
are told, was made with 1 oz. of calcined sulphate of iron (_ch’ing
fan_) and 5 oz. of carbonate of lead, mixed with Canton ox-glue to make
it adhere to the porcelain before it was fired. This is the iron red,
the _rouge de fer_ of the French, which varies in tint from orange or
coral to deep brick red, and in texture from an impalpable film almost
to the consistency of a glaze, according to the quantity of lead flux
used with it. On the older wares it is often deeply iridescent and
lustrous, owing to the decomposition of the lead flux. This _fan hung_
is the colour which the Chia Ching potters were fain to substitute for
the underglaze copper red (_chi hung_) when the usual material for that
highly prized colour had come to an end, and difficulty was experienced
in finding an effective substitute.
The remaining colours of the on-glaze palette are more obviously
enamels; that is to say, glassy compounds; and as they were, in
accordance with Chinese custom, very lightly charged with colouring
matter, it was necessary to pile them on thickly where depth of colour
was required.
Hence the thickly encrusted appearance of much of the Chinese enamelled
porcelain. The Wan Li enamels consisted of transparent greens of
several shades (all derived from copper), including a very blue green
which seems to have been peculiar to the Ming palette, yellow (from
antimony) pale and clear or brownish and rather opaque, and transparent
aubergine, a colour derived from manganese and varying in tint from
purple to brown. Two thin dry pigments--one an iron red and the other
a brown black colour derived from manganese--were used for drawing
outlines; and the brown black was also used in masses with a coating
of transparent green to form a green black colour, the same which is
so highly prized on the _famille noire_ porcelains of the K’ang Hsi
period. As for the blue enamel of the K’ang Hsi period, it can hardly
be said to have existed before the end of the Ming dynasty.[230]
Gilding, which was apparently in use throughout[231] the Ming period,
was applied to the finished porcelain and fired in the muffle kiln. The
gold leaf, combined with one-tenth by weight of carbonate of lead, was
mixed with gum and painted on with a brush. The effect, as seen on the
red and green bowls (Plate 74), was light and filmy, and though the
gold often has the unsubstantial appearance of size-gilding, in reality
it adheres firmly[232] and is not easily scratched.
Of the other processes described in the _T’ao shuo_,[233] embossed
(_tui_ [chch]) decoration was effected by applying strips or shavings
of the body material and working them into form with a wet brush.
Some of the more delicate traceries, in scarcely perceptible relief,
are painted in white slip. Engraved (_chui_ [chch]) decoration was
effected by carving with an iron graving-tool on the body while it was
still soft. And so, too, with the openwork (_ling lung_), which has
already been described.[234] All these processes were in use in one
form or another from the earliest reigns of the Ming dynasty, and some
of them, at any rate, have been encountered on the Sung wares. High
reliefs, such as the figures on the bowls described on p. 74, would
be separately modelled and “luted” on by means of liquid clay; and,
as already noted, these reliefs were often left in the biscuit state,
though at times we find them covered with coloured glazes. It is hardly
necessary to add that the same processes were applied to pottery, and
that the reliefs took many other forms besides figures, e.g. dragon
designs, foliage, scrollwork, symbols, etc.
[Illustration: PLATE 85
Vase with crackled greenish grey glaze coated on the exterior
with transparent apple green enamel: the base unglazed. Probably
sixteenth century.
Height 14 inches.
_British Museum._]
The crackled glazes of the Sung period were still made, though the Ming
tendency was to substitute painted decoration for monochrome; and we
have already noted the crackled blue and lavender in which a second
glaze is added to a grey white crackle. This process is particularly
noticeable in the “apple green” monochromes (Plate 85), both of the
Ming and Ch’ing dynasties, in which a green overglaze itself uncrackled
is washed on to a crackled stone grey porcelain. The green is often
carried down over the slightly browned biscuit of the foot rim, forming
a band of brown. But this, so far from being a peculiarity of the
Ming technique, is much more conspicuous on the porcelains of the early
eighteenth century, when it was the constant practice to dress the foot
rim of the crackled wares with a brown ferruginous earth in imitation
of the “iron foot” of their Sung prototypes.
The work at the Imperial factory[235] was divided between twenty-three
departments, nine of which were occupied with accessories, such as
the making of ropes and barrels, general carpentry, and even boat
building. Five separate departments were employed in making the large
bowls, the wine cups, the plates, the large round dishes, and the tea
cups; another in preparing the “paste” or body material, and another in
making the “seggars” or fireclay cases in which the ware was packed in
the kiln. Five more were occupied in the details of decoration, viz.
the mark and seal department, the department for engraving designs, the
department for sketching designs, the department for writing, and the
department for colouring.
It does not appear that the work of decoration was so minutely
subdivided in the Ming period as in later times, when we are told that
a piece of porcelain might pass through more than seventy hands; but it
is clear, at least, that the outlining and filling in of the designs
were conducted in separate sheds. This is, indeed, self-apparent
from the Ming blue and white porcelains, the designs of which are
characterised by strong and clear outlines filled in with flat washes
of colour.
With regard to the actual designs, we are told that in the Ch’êng
Hua period they were drawn by the best artists at the Court, and
from another passage[236] it is clear that the practice of sending
the patterns from the palace continued in later reigns as well.
Such designs would no doubt accumulate, and probably they were
collected together from time to time and issued in the form of
pattern books.[237] Another method in which the painters of Ming
blue and white were served with patterns is related in the _T’ao
shuo_[238]:--“For painting in blue, the artists were collected each
day at dawn and at noon, and the colour for painting was distributed
among them. Two men of good character were first selected, the
larger pieces of porcelain being given to one, the smaller pieces
to the other; and when they had finished their painting, the amount
of the material used was calculated before the things were taken to
the furnace to be baked. If the results were satisfactory, then the
pieces were given as models to the other painters, and in the rest of
the pieces painted, the quantity of the colour used and the depth of
the tint was required to be in exact accordance with these models.”
There was little scope for originality or individual effort under
this system, where everything, even to the amount of material used,
was strictly prescribed. To translate their model with feeling and
accuracy was the best that could be expected from the rank and file.
But with the manual skill and patient industry for which the Chinese
are proverbial, and the good taste which prevailed in the direction
of the work, it was a system admirably suited to the task, and it
unquestionably led to excellent results.
As to the systems in use in the private factories we have no
information, but we may fairly assume that their processes were much
the same; and that, not having the benefit of the designs sent from
Court, they were more dependent upon the pattern books and stock
designs more or less remotely connected with the work of famous
painters.