Page 57 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ch'eng Hua (1465-1487) 23

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,^ and on
the fine quality of the colours used, and an interesting list of patterns

is given in the T'ao shiio,^ which includes the following :
1. Stem-cups {pa pei), with high foot, flattened bowl, and spread-

ing mouth ; decorated in colours with a grape-vine pattern.

" Among the highest class of Ch'eng Hua porcelain these are
unsurpassed, and in workmanship they far excel the Hsiian Te
cups." Such is the verdict of the Po wu yao Ian, but they are only
known to us by later imitations.

A poor illustration of one of these is given in Hsiang's Album, ^

and we are told in the accompanying text that the glaze is fen pai,
"white like rice powder," while the decoration, a band of oblique
vine clusters and tendrils, is merely described as z^it is'ai (poly-
chrome), but it is obviously too slight to be executed by any
other method than painting with enamels on the glaze. The
price paid for this cup is stated as one hundred taels (or ounces)

of silver.

2. Chicken cups {chi kang), shaped like the flat-bottomed, steep-
sided, and wide-mouthed fish bowls {kang), and painted in colours
with a hen and chickens beneath a flowering plant.

A valuable commentary on Ch'eng Hua porcelains is given by

a late seventeenth-century writer in notes appended to various
odes (e.g. on a " chicken cup " and on a Chiin Chou vase). The

writer is Kao Tan-j en, who also called himself Kao Chiang-ts'un,
the name appended to a long dissertation on a Yiian djaiasty silver
wine cup, which now belongs to Sir Robert Biddulph and was
figured in the Burlington Magazine.^ " Ch'eng Hua wine cups,"

he tells us, " include a great variety of sorts. All are of clever
workmanship and decoration, and are delicately coloured in dark
and light shades. The porcelain is lustrous and clear, but strong.
The chicken cups are painted with a run tan peony, and below it
a hen and chicken, which seem to live and move." Another writer °
of the same period states that he frequented the fair at the Tz'u-

^ See Hsiang's Album, op. cit., fig. 38.
» Bk. vi., fols. 7-9, and Bushell's translation, op. cit., pp. 141-3.

3 Op. cit., fig. 55.
* Burlington Magazine, December, 1912, pp. 153-8.
»The author of the P'u shu t'ing chi (Memoirs of the Pavilion for Sunning Books),
quoted in the T'ao shuo, loo. cit.