CHAPTER XVII
MARKS ON CHINESE POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
THE custom of placing on works of art the name of the maker, the date of manufacture, or some sign or symbol indicating the intention with which they were made, dates back in China at least as far as the Han dynasty. Such marks occur on pottery and porcelain rarely at first, but with a frequency which increases in proportion as we draw nearer to modern times. They are incised or stamped in the soft body of the ware, or painted under the glaze (usually in blue) or over it in enamel colours or gold; and they are generally placed on the base of the ware, though there are fairly numerous instances in which the mark is written along the mouth rim or in some other more or less conspicuous position.
The earliest marks, as far as I am aware, are incised, and those on the Han, T´ang, and Sung potteries, not to mention the intermediate dynasties, should be scrutinised with the greatest care to make sure whether the incisions were made before the pottery was baked or afterwards. There should be no difficulty in determining this point, for the lines cut with a sharp instrument in the fired ware are necessarily harder and less free than those incised in the soft clay, and the edges of the incisions will present obvious differences in the two cases. Unfortunately the early date–marks which I have seen up to the present have almost all been cut after the firing. It does not necessarily follow that such inscriptions are modern additions. Indeed in many cases they are in a style which is clearly old. But their value as evidence is very small, for it is impossible to prove the exact time of their carving; and at best we can only regard them as representing the opinion of some former owner as to the date of the vessel in question. At their worst, they are deliberate frauds added by modern vendors with intent to deceive.
Incised or stamped marks have always been common on pottery, but porcelain is usually marked by painting with a brush, and for this purpose underglaze blue is the commonest medium, red and other on–glaze colours being used chiefly on the relatively modern wares decorated in famille rose enamels. Similarly the ordinary script is usual in marks, and seal characters are quite exceptional on porcelain earlier than the eighteenth century.
It is not safe to take the older date–marks on porcelain at their face value. The Chinese with their proverbial veneration for antiquity habitually placed the date–marks of the classical reigns on their porcelain whether decorated in the style of the period mentioned or not. Already in the sixteenth century the Hsüan Tê and Ch'êng Hua marks were used in this way, and in the K'ang Hsi period the names of these two classic reigns were used more frequently than that of the K'ang Hsi period itself. In fact the Hsüan Tê and Ch'êng Hua are on the whole the most familiar marks of all, though the actual wares of these two periods are among the rarest. The date–marks of the other Ming Emperors are less frequently plagiarised, except upon the deliberate imitations of the wares of the time, such as those made at the Imperial factory in the Yung Chêng period, which we may be sure were carefully marked with the appropriate nien hao. Moreover, the Japanese, who have expended much ingenuity on reproducing Ming wares, have made free with Ming date–marks, especially those of Chia Ching and Wan Li.
In the year 1677 the potters at Ching–tê Chên were forbidden by an order of the district prefect[448] to inscribe the period–name of the Emperor or any sacred writing on their porcelain, lest the names should be profaned in the breaking of the ware. It is certain that this prohibition was not effective for long; but probably the current date–mark was suppressed for a time at least, and it is quite likely that we should trace to this interval the custom of putting symbols or conventional marks inside the double ring which was usually occupied by the nien hao, a common practice in the K'ang Hsi period. In many cases, too, the rings were left empty; but it is a mistake to regard this as an infallible sign of K'ang Hsi manufacture, for it is a thing which might happen at any time through negligence, the rings being made by one person and the marks written by another. There are, besides, well authenticated instances of the empty double ring on Wan Li porcelain,[449] and on post K'ang Hsi wares. It was, however, such a frequent occurrence on the K'ang Hsi wares that the modern imitators make a common practice of leaving the rings blank on their copies of the K'ang Hsi blue and white. It is not clear whether the prefect's prohibition applied to the names of Ming emperors, but probably it did not, as it is unlikely that the adherents of the reigning dynasty would be sensitive about the titles of the house which they had exterminated. In any case, Ming marks, especially those of the fifteenth century, are very common on the K'ang Hsi porcelain, and the K'ang Hsi mark itself is comparatively rare except on the specimens which must belong to the later years of the reign.
En revanche, the K'ang Hsi mark is freely used on quite modern wares, that period being now regarded as classical; so that we are confronted with the paradox that if a specimen of fine quality[450] is marked Ch'êng Hua, it may generally be assumed that it was made in the K'ang Hsi period, while the bulk of the pieces which bear the K'ang Hsi mark are of modern date.