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].