MISCELLANEOUS PORCELAIN FACTORIES
Although from the Ming period onwards our interest is almost entirely
centred in Ching-tê Chên, there were other factories which cannot be
altogether ignored. A certain number have already been mentioned at the
end of the first volume, our scanty information being drawn chiefly
from the pottery section of the K’ang Hsi Encyclopædia. The same
monumental work includes in another part[239] a discourse on porcelain
(_tz’ŭ ch’i_), in which several additional factories are named. The
passage in question is prefaced by a quotation from the _Tien hung k’ai
wu_, a late-seventeenth century manual, in which we are told that the
white earth (_o t’u_[240]) necessary for the manufacture of fine and
elegant ware was found in China in five or six places only[241]: viz.
at Ting Chou, in the Chên-ting Fu in Chih-li, at Hua-ting Chou in the
Ping-liang Fu in Shensi, at P’ing-ting Chou in the T’ai-yüan Fu in
Shansi, and at Yü Chou in the K’ai-fêng Fu in Honan, in the north; and
at Tê-hua Hsien in the Ch’üan-chou Fu in Fukien, at Wu-yüan Hsien and
Ch’i-mên Hsien in the Hui-chou Fu, in Anhui, in the south. As to the
wares made in these localities, we are told that the porcelains of the
Chên-ting and K’ai-fêng districts were generally yellow and dull and
without the jewel-like brilliancy, and that all put together were not
equal to the Jao Chou ware. It would appear, then, that the Ting Chou
factories so noted in Sung times were still extant, though they had
lost their importance. For the rest, the Ch’i-mên district supplied
Ching-tê Chên with the raw material, the Tê-hua wares will be discussed
presently, and we have no information about the productions (if any) of
the other localities.
The province of Fukien apparently contained several factories
besides the important centre at Tê-hua. The Annals of Ch’üan-chou
Fu (celebrated as a trading port in the Middle Ages), for instance,
are quoted with reference to a porcelain (_tz’ŭ ch’i_) manufacture
at Tz’ŭ-tsao in the Chin-chiang Hsien, and three other places in the
district of An-ch’i are named as producers of white porcelain which was
inferior to that of Jao Chou. Similarly, the Annals of Shao-wu Fu, on
the north-east border of the province, allude to white porcelain made
at three places,[242] the factory at T’ai-ming in An-jen being the
best, but all were far from equalling the Jao Chou ware.
The district of Wên-chou Fu (formerly in the south of Fukien but now
transferred to northern Chekiang) was noted for pottery in the distant
days of the Chin dynasty (265–419 A.D.), and for the “bowls
of Eastern Ou.”[243] Of its subsequent ceramic history we have no
information, but there is an interesting specimen in the British Museum
which seems to bear on the question. It is an incense burner in the
form of a seated figure of the god of Longevity on a deer, skilfully
modelled in strong white porcelain and painted in a good blue in the
Ming style; and on the box in which it came was a note to the effect
that it is Wên-chou ware. If there is any truth in this legend (and it
would be quite pointless if untrue), then a blue and white porcelain in
the style of the better class of Ming export ware was made at Wên-chou.
Another interesting specimen in the same museum, which should also be
mentioned here, is a bottle with wide straight neck, of fine white ware
thickly potted, with soft, smooth-worn glaze painted in a greyish blue
with a medley of flowers, fruit, insects, and symbols, completed by
borders of _ju-i_ heads and stiff leaves. It is marked under the base
in a fine violet blue, _fu fan chih ts’ao_, which, rendered “made on
the borders of Fukien,” might refer to the factories at Shao-wu Fu or
even Wên-chou Fu. This is another piece which has many affinities with
the late Ming export blue and white.
But the Fukien porcelain _par excellence_ is a white ware of
distinctive character and great beauty which was and still is made
at Tê-hua Hsien, in the central part of the province.[244] This is
the _blanc de Chine_ of the French writers and the modern Chien yao
of the Chinese, but to be carefully distinguished from the ancient
Chien yao with mottled black glaze which was made in the Sung dynasty
at Chien-yang in the north of the province.[245] The _T’ao lu_[246]
informs us that the porcelain industry at Tê-hua began in the Ming
dynasty, that the cups and bowls usually had a spreading rim, that the
ware was known as _pai tz’ŭ_ (white porcelain), that it was rich and
lustrous but, as a rule, thick, and that the images of Buddha were very
beautiful. This condensed account is supplemented by a few remarks in
the K’ang Hsi Encyclopædia,[247] from which we gather that the material
for the ware was mined in the hills behind the Ch’êng monastery and
that it was very carefully prepared, but if the porcelain was worked
thin it was liable to lose shape in the kiln, and if it was too thick
it was liable to crack. At first it was very expensive, but by the time
of writing (about 1700) it was widely distributed and no longer dear.
Tê-hua porcelain is, in fact, a fine white, highly vitrified material,
as a rule very translucent and covered with a soft-looking, mellow
glaze which blends so intimately with the body that they seem to be
part and parcel of one another. The glaze varies in tone from ivory or
cream white to the colour of skim milk, and its texture may be aptly
described by the homely comparison with blancmange. When the ivory
colour is suffused by a faint rosy tinge, it is specially prized; but
I can find no reason for supposing that the cream white and milk white
tints represent different periods of the ware. On the contrary, there
is good evidence to show that they were made concurrently.
As the ware is with few exceptions plain white or white decorated
with incised, impressed, moulded, or applied ornaments of a rather
formal and often archaic character, there will always be a difficulty
in determining the date of the finer specimens, viz. whether they
are Ming or early Ch’ing. The nature of the ware itself is a most
uncertain guide, for one of the most beautiful examples of the material
which I have seen is a figure of a European soldier which cannot be
older than 1650. I need hardly say that owners of Fukien porcelain,
particularly of the figures, habitually give themselves the benefit of
this ever present doubt, and that these pieces are usually listed in
sale catalogues as Ming or early Ming according to taste. This attitude
is fundamentally illogical, for the ware is still made at the present
day, and the Ming specimens in modern collections are likely to be the
exception, and not, as optimistic owners would lead one to suppose, the
rule. But in any case it will be more convenient to deal with the ware
as a whole in the present chapter than to attempt the difficult task of
treating its different periods separately, even though the bulk of our
examples belong to the Ch’ing dynasty.
Tê-hua porcelain can be conveniently studied in the British Museum,
where there is a fairly representative collection comprising more
than a hundred specimens. It includes a number of the figures for
which the factories were specially noted, of deities and sages such
as Kuan-yin, goddess of Mercy; Kuan-yü, god of War; Bodhidharma, the
Buddhist apostle; Manjusri, of the Buddhist Trinity; Hsi-wang-mu, the
Taoist queen of the west; the Taoist Immortals; besides small groups
representing romantic or mythological subjects such as Wang Chih
watching the two spirits of the pole stars playing chess. But the
favourite subject of the Tê-hua modeller was the beautiful and gracious
figure of Kuan-yin, represented in various poses as standing on a cloud
base with flowing robes, seated in contemplation on a rocky pedestal,
or enthroned between her two attributes, the dove--which often carries
a necklace of pearls--and the vase of nectar, while at her feet on
either side stand two diminutive figures representing[248] her follower
Lung Nü (the dragon maid), holding a pearl, and the devoted comrade
of her earthly adventures Chên Tsai. The Kuan-yin of this group is
reputed to have been the daughter of a legendary eastern King named
Miao-chuang, but other accounts make the deity a Chinese version of the
Buddhist Avalokitesvara, and it is certain that her representations
as the Kuan-yin with eleven heads and again with a “thousand” hands
reflect Indian traditions. In the latter manifestations the sex of the
deity is left in doubt, but there can be no question on that head when
she is represented with a babe in her arms as “Kuan-yin the Maternal,”
to whom childless women pray, a figure strangely resembling our images
of the Virgin and Child. Indeed, we are told[249] that the Japanese
converts to Christianity in the sixteenth century adopted the Kuan-yin
figure as a Madonna, and that there is in the Imperial Museum in the
Ueno Park, Tokio, a remarkable collection of these images among the
Christian relics. There is, however, another deity with whom this
Kuan-yin may easily be confounded, viz. the Japanese Kichimojin, also
“the Maternal,” the Sanskrit Hâriti, who was once the devourer of
infants but was converted by Sakyamuni and was afterwards worshipped as
the protector of children. This deity figures in Japanese pictorial art
as a “female holding a peach and nursing in her bosom an infant, whose
hands are folded in prayer. In front stand two nude children, one of
whom grasps a peach, the other a branch of bamboo.”[250]
Among the Tê-hua porcelains in the British Museum are no fewer than
nine specimens--groups, figures, or ornamental structures--with figures
in European costumes which date from the middle to the end of the
seventeenth century. One, a soldier apparently Dutch, about 1650,
is well modelled in deliciously mellow and translucent cream white
porcelain. Most of the others are more roughly designed, and vary in
tint from cream to milk white.
It is said that the natives of the Fukien province are among the most
superstitious of the Chinese, and Bushell[251] sees a reflection of
this religious temperament in the nature of the Tê-hua wares. If this
is so, they must have had exalted opinions of their European visitors,
whom they often furnish with the attributes of Chinese divinities,
representing them in positions and poses which seem to caricature
native deities and sages. There is, for instance, an ornament in form
of a mountain retreat with a shrine in which is seated a figure in a
three-cornered European hat and a Buddha-like attitude. Another group
consists of a European mounted on a _ch’i-lin_, posing as an
Arhat, and another of a European standing on a dragon’s head which
would symbolise to the Chinese the attainment of the highest literary
honours.
There are, besides, in the British Museum collection figures of animals
and birds, the Buddhist lion, the cock, the hawk, or the parrot,
mostly fitted with tubes to hold incense sticks; and there are a pair
of well modelled figures of Chou dogs.
As for the vessels of Tê-hua porcelain, they consist chiefly of incense
vases and incense burners, libation cups shaped after bronze or
rhinoceros horn models, brush pots, wine cups, water vessels for the
study table and the like (often beautifully modelled in the form of
lotus leaves or flowers), boxes, tea and wine pots, cups and bowls, and
more rarely vases.
An extensive trade was done with the European merchants, whose
influence is apparent in many of the wares, such as coffee cups with
handles, mugs of cylindrical form or globular with straight ribbed
necks in German style, and “barber-surgeons’ bowls” with flat pierced
handles copied from silver models. Indeed, the superficially European
appearance of some of these pieces has led serious students to mistake
them for early Meissen porcelain and even for that nebulous porcelain
supposed to have been made by John Dwight, of Fulham, at the end of the
seventeenth century. Père d’Entrecolles[252] incidentally mentions the
fact that some Ching-tê Chên potters had in the past removed to Fukien
in the hope of making profits out of the European traders at Amoy, and
that they had taken their plant and even their materials with them, but
that the enterprise was a failure.
Conversely, the influence of the Tê-hua wares is obvious in many of the
early European porcelains, such as those made at Meissen, St. Cloud,
Bow, and Chelsea, which were often closely modelled on the Fukien
white. There is, indeed, a striking similarity between the creamy
soft-paste porcelain of St. Cloud and the creamy variety of the _blanc
de chine_, both having the same mellow, melting appearance in the glaze.
[Illustration: Plate 86.--Fukien Porcelain, Ming Dynasty.
Fig 1.--Figure of Kuan-yin with boy attendant. Ivory white.
Height 10¼ inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._
Fig. 2.--Bottle with prunus sprigs in relief, the glaze crackled
all over and stained a brownish tint. Height 9⅛ inches.
_Eumorfopoulos Collection._
Fig. 3.--Figure of Bodhidharma crossing the Yangtze on a reed.
Ivory white. Height 7½ inches. _Salting Collection_ (_V. &
A. Museum_).]
[Illustration: Plate 87.--Ivory White Fukien Porcelain.
Fig. 1.--Libation Cup. About 1700. Length 3⅞ inches. _British
Museum._
Fig. 2.--Cup with sixteenth-century mount. Height 2 inches.
_Dresden Collection._
Fig. 3.--Incense Vase and Stand. About 1700. Diameter 6¾ inches.
_British Museum._]
It would be possible to guess from these European copies, if we had no
other means, the character of the Tê-hua porcelain of the K’ang Hsi
period with its quaintly moulded forms, its relief decoration of prunus
sprigs, figures of Immortals, deer, etc., the only conspicuously absent
type being the incised[253] ornament which was unsuited to the European
ware. But there is no lack of actual specimens of the period of
active export which extended from about 1650–1750. Naturally they vary
greatly in quality, which depends on the purity and translucence of
the ware whether it be cream or milk white, and on the soft aspect
and rich lustre of the glaze. A large series, which may be taken as
representative of the K’ang Hsi period, was collected by Augustus
the Strong, and is still to be seen at the Johanneum at Dresden; or,
rather, part of it is still there, for much of that historic collection
was given away or pilfered from time to time, and many specimens with
the Dresden catalogue numbers engraved are now to be found in our own
museums. Many of the figures at Dresden have evidently been coated
with a kind of black paint, which probably served as a medium for oil
gilding, but this unfired colouring has worn away, and only traces now
remain.
Occasionally one finds among the Tê-hua wares a specimen with dry
appearance and crazed or discoloured glaze, defects due to faulty
firing or to burial in damp soil. Such pieces are surprising in a
ware with such apparent homogeneity of body and glaze, and the crazed
examples might be easily mistaken for one of the _t’u ting_ (or
earthy Ting ware) types.
As to the history of the factories, it is expressly stated in the
_T’ao lu_ that they were started in the Ming dynasty. No account
need be taken of the few legendary specimens to which tradition assigns
an earlier origin than this, such as the so-called flute of Yoshitsune,
a twelfth-century hero of Japan, and the incense burner in St. Mark’s,
Venice, which is reputed to have been brought from China by Marco Polo.
The latter is of the same model as Fig. 3 of Plate 87, perhaps from the
same mould, and I have seen at least half a dozen others in London. A
third piece which was long regarded as a document is the jewelled white
plate in the Dresden collection, supposed to have been brought back
from Syria by a Crusader in the twelfth century. The story is no doubt
apocryphal, but in any case it has no real bearing on the question,
for the plate is not Fukien ware but a specimen of white Ching-tê Chên
porcelain with a “shop mark” in underglaze blue. It has been set with
jewels in India or Persia, like a sixteenth-century bowl in the British
Museum, but the “Crusader plate” is probably a century later.
Brinkley[254] asserts, without giving any authority, that the Tê-hua
industry was virtually discontinued at the end of the eighteenth
century, and revived in recent years. The latter part of the
statement is unquestionably true, for we have the eye-witness of a
missionary[255] who visited the place about 1880 and describes the
manufactory as the most extensive of its kind in Fukien--“pottery,
pottery everywhere, in the fields, in the streets, in the shops. In
the open air children are painting the cups. Each artist paints with
his own colour and his own few strokes, whether a leaf, a tree, a
man’s dress or beard, and passes it over to his neighbour, who in
turn applies his brush to paint what is his share in the decoration.”
Unfortunately there is no reason to suppose that the writer made his
observations with an expert eye which would make a distinction between
pottery and porcelain, but in any case it is certain that he found a
vast ceramic industry in full blast at Tê-hua.
With reference to the modern ware Brinkley says[256]: “A considerable
number of specimens are now produced and palmed off upon unwary
collectors. But the amateur can easily avoid such deceptions if he
remembers that in genuine pieces of ivory white the ware is always
translucid when held up to the light, a property which, if not entirely
absent, is only possessed in a comparatively slight degree by the
modern product. The general quality of the glaze and the technique
of a piece should be sufficient guides, but if any doubt remains an
examination of the base of the specimens will probably dispel it. In
the old ware the bottom of a vase or bowl, though carefully finished,
is left uncovered, whereas the modern potter is fond of hiding his
inferior pâte by roughly overspreading it with a coat of glaze.”
Probably these observations are in the main correct, but experience
shows that relative opacity and glazed bases are by no means confined
to modern wares. Still, if the collector aims at acquiring pieces of
good colour, whether cream or milk white, with translucent body, pure
glaze and sharp modelling, he is not likely to go far astray.
The description quoted above of the painting of modern Fukien ware
is interesting in view of the common assertion that the Tê-hua white
porcelain was never painted. This assertion is probably based on a
passage in the first letter of Père d’Entrecolles: “Celle (i.e. la
porcelaine) de Fou-kien est d’un blanc de neige qui n’a nul éclat et
qui n’est point mélangé de couleurs.” On the other hand, a distinct
reference is made to the painting in colours in a modern Chinese
work.[257] Unfortunately, the question has been complicated by the
existence of many pieces of Fukien white which have been enamelled
in Europe. In the first half of the eighteenth century in Holland,
Germany, and elsewhere, there were decorators busy enamelling white
porcelain of whatever kind they could get, and the _blanc de
chine_ offered a ready subject for this treatment. The decoration
thus added was usually in Oriental taste, and might be confused with
indifferent Chinese work. Many of these pieces are in the British
Museum. On the other hand, there are in the same collection two
cups with roughly painted floral designs in green and red which
are obviously Chinese, though they might well have been painted in
the mechanical method described by Mr. Dukes, which was probably
traditional. Mr. Eumorfopoulos possesses several good examples of this
painted Fukien ware, one of which may be described to show the style
of painting affected. It is executed in leaf green, lustrous red, and
the turquoise green which we associate with the Wan Li period, and
the form--a double-bottomed bowl--is likewise reminiscent of the Ming
dynasty.
The Japanese, whose traditions have often proved most misleading,
have frequently classed the Fukien white as Corean porcelain
(_haku-gorai_ or white Corean), probably because specimens reached
them from the Corean ports. In the British Museum, for instance, there
is a beautiful white incense vase, formerly in the collection of Mr.
Ninagawa of Tokio, and labelled by him as “Corean porcelain, 500 years
old.” It has all the characteristics of the finest cream white Fukien
ware of late Ming or K’ang Hsi period, and if this piece is Corean,
then I do not believe that even the subtle perception of the Japanese
could find any difference between Corean and Fukien white. It is only
right to add that other Japanese experts have pronounced it Chinese.
Incidentally, I may mention that the base of this vase is glazed.
Marks were occasionally used by the Tê-hua potters, either incised or
stamped in seal form,[258] on the bottoms of cups and other vessels,
and on the backs of figures. Reign marks are rare, but apocryphal
dates of the Hsüan Tê period occasionally occur, as on a figure of Li
T’ieh-kuaì in the British Museum. Others consist of potters’ marks too
often illegible because the thick glaze has filled up the hollows of
the stamps, fanciful seal marks, frets, whorls, and occasionally the
swastika symbol. A few examples are given in vol. i., p. 222.