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.
CHAPTER III
CH’ÊNG HUA
(1465–1487) AND OTHER REIGNS
The Ch’êng Hua porcelain shares with that of the Hsüan Tê period the honours of the Ming dynasty, and Chinese writers are divided on the relative merits of the two. Unfortunately, no material remains on which we might base a verdict of our own, but we may safely accept the summing up which the Po wu yao lan, the premier authority on early Ming wares, gives as follows[51]: “In my opinion, the blue and white porcelain of the Ch’êng Hua period does not equal that of the Hsüan Tê, while the polychrome of the Hsüan period does not equal that of the 'model[52] emperor’s’ reign. The reason is that the blue of the Hsüan ware was su-ni-p’o[53] blue, whereas afterward it was all exhausted, and in the Ch’êng Hua period only the ordinary blue was used. On the other hand, the polychrome (wu ts’ai) decoration on the Hsüan ware was deep and thick, heaped and piled, and consequently not very beautiful; while on the polychrome wares of the Ch’êng Hua period the colours used were thin and subdued,[54] and gave the impression of a picture.”[55] Elsewhere we read that the Hsüan Tê porcelain was thick, the Ch’êng Hua thin, and that the blue of the Hsüan blue and white was pale, that of the Ch’êng Hua dark; but on this latter point there are many differences of opinion, and among the wares made at the Imperial factory in the Yung Chêng period we are told that there were “copies of Ch’êng Hua porcelain with designs pencilled in pale blue (tan ch’ing).”[56]
The only types of Ch’êng Hua porcelain considered worthy of mention by Chinese writers are the polychrome, the blue and white, and the red monochrome, though doubtless the other methods of previous reigns were still used. Stress is laid on the excellence of the designs which were supplied by artists in the palace,[57] and on the fine quality of the colours used, and an interesting list of patterns is given in the T’ao shuo,[58] which includes the following:
1. Stem-cups (pa pei), with high foot, flattened bowl, and spreading mouth; decorated in colours with a grape-vine pattern.
“Among the highest class of Ch’êng Hua porcelain these are unsurpassed, and in workmanship they far excel the Hsüan Tê cups.” Such is the verdict of the Po wu yao lan, but they are only known to us by later imitations.