Page 107 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Chia Ching (1522-1566) 51

emerald, and a bluish green ^ which seems to be peculiar to the late

Ming period.

A box in the collection of Dr. C. Seligmann has a dragon design

reserved in a blue ground and washed over with yellow enamel, on

which in turn are details traced in iron red ; and another peculiar
type of Chia Ching polychrome in the Pierpont Morgan Collection

(Cat. No. 882) is a tea cup with blue Imperial dragons inside, "on

the outside deep yellow glaze with decoration in brownish red of

intensely luminous tone, derived from iron, lightly brushed on the

yellow ground : the decoration consists of a procession of boys

carrying vases of flowers round the sides of the cup with addition

of a scroll of foliage encircling the rim." Both these specimens have

the Chia Ching mark.

Allusion has already been made (p. 6) to a type of bowl which
belongs to the Ming period, though opinions differ as to the exact

part of that dynasty to which it should be assigned. The bowls

vary slightly in form, but the most usual kind is that shown on

APlate 74 with well rounded sides. common feature, which does

not appear in the photograph, is a convex centre. Others, again,

are shallow with concave base, but no foot rim. The decoration of

those in the British Museum includes (1) a coral red exterior with

gilt designs as described on p. 6, combined with slight under-

glaze blue interior ornament, (2) a beautiful pale emerald green
exterior similarly gilt, with or without blue ornament inside, and

(3) a single specimen with white slip traceries in faint relief under

the glaze inside, the outside enamelled with turquoise blue medal-

lions and set with cabochon jewels in Persia or India. There are

similar bowls in the Dresden collection, with pale sky blue glaze

on the exterior. As already noted, one or two of the red bowls

have the Yung Lo mark, but, as a rule, they are marked with phrases

of commendation or good wish,^ such as tan kuei (red cassia, emblem

of literary success), wan fu yu thing (may infinite happiness embrace
all your affairs !) Two of them are known to have sixteenth-

century European mounts, viz. the red bowl mentioned on p. 6,

and a green specimen in the British Museum.^ Without denying

the possibility of some of the red examples dating back to the Yung

^ A good example of this colouring is a large bowl with Chia Ching mark in the

Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin.
» See vol. i, p. 225.
' Figured in F. Dillon, Porcelain, Plate v.