(3) Potters' names, etc.
Marks which include potters' names (apart from the uncertain hall marks) are rare on Chinese porcelain though frequent enough on pottery. But it will be remembered that at Ching–tê Chên at any rate the porcelain passed through so many hands that the individuality of the work was lost, and consequently a personal mark would be, as a rule, misleading. The question of signatures in the field of the decoration has been discussed[455] with the conclusion that they belong rather to the artists who painted the original copied by the pot–painters than to the pot–painter himself.
Perhaps we should include here a fairly common type of mark, usually in the form of a small seal of a conventional and quite illegible character, which goes by the name of "shop marks." But it is not clear whether they refer to the maker or the firm who ordered the porcelain.
POTTERS' MARKS
Ma chên shih tsao = made by ma ch´ên–shih (on a T´ang vase).
