Page 67 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ch'ang Hua (1465-1487) 27

to fit a wooden stand, a feature which was not usual before the
K'ang Hsi period, and something in the style of the drawing is
rather suggestive of Japanese work. There is, however, another
speeimen in the Franks Collection^ which is certainly Chinese of

the Ming dynasty, and possibly of the Ch'eng Hua period, of which

it bears the mark. It is a vase of baluster form, thick and strongly
built, with great weight of clay at the foot, and unfortunately,

like so many of the early polychrome vases which have come from
China in recent years, it is cut down at the neck. It has a greyish

crackled glaze, painted with a floral scroll design, outlined in brown
black pigment and washed in with leaf green, yellow, manganese
purple and bluish green enamels, which are supplemented by a
little underglaze blue, and the mark is in four characters in blue
in a sunk panel under the base.

Though too clumsy to belong to any of the groups of Imperial
wares described in the Po tvu yao Ian, this vase is certainly an old
piece, and possibly the production of one of the private factories

of the Ch'eng Hua period. In the Eumorfopoulos and Benson

Collections - there are a few examples of these massive-footed vases,
most of them unfortunately incomplete above, decorated in poly-
chrome glazes with engraved or relief-edged designs, but not, as a

rule, in on-glaze enamels. These are clearly among our earliest
examples of polychrome porcelain, and we should expect to find

here, if anywhere, specimens of the coloured porcelain of the fifteenth

century. See Plate 64.

Though the fifteenth century was distinguished by two brilliant
periods, there are considerable gaps in the ceramic annals of the
time. The reign of the Emperor Cheng T'ung,^ who succeeded
to the throne in 1436, was troubled by wars, and in his first year
the directorate of the Imperial factory was abolished ; and, as
soldiers had to be levied, relief was given by stopping the manu-
facture of porcelain for the palace. In 1449 this emperor was
actually taken captive by the Mongols, and his brother, who took
his place from 1450 to 1456 under the title of Ching T'ai,*
reduced the customary supplies of palace wares in 1454 by one
third. The reign of Ching T'ai is celebrated for cloisonne enamel
on metal.

* See E. Dillon, Porcelain, Plate vii.

H2 See Cat., B. F. A., 1910, 21, I 7.