Page 69 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Cheng Te (1506-1521) 29

inscribed in Arabic with the date 1021 a.h., which corresponds to

1611 A.D.

A beautiful seated figure of the goddess Kuan-yin in the Pier-

pont Morgan Collection, not unlike Plate 65, Fig. 2, but smaller, is
decorated with yellow, green and aubergine glazes on the biscuit,
and bears a date in the Hung Chih period which corresponds

to 1502.

A dish of fine white porcelain with the Hung Chih mark is in

the British Museum, and examples of the blue and white of the

period may be seen in the celebrated Trenchard bowls. These
last are the earliest known arrivals in the way of Chinese porcelain
in this country, and they were given by Philip of Austria, King
of Castile, to Sir Thomas Trenchard in 1506. One of them is illus-

trated in Gulland's Chinese Porcelain,^ with a description written
by Mr. Winthrop after a personal inspection. The decoration con-
sists of floral scrolls outside and a fish medallion surrounded by
four fishes inside. The account of the colour, however, is not very
flattering : " One of the bowls bore this decoration very distinctly
traced in blackish cobalt, while the other bowl had a very washed-
out and faded appearance." The ware itself is described as " rather

greyish." Probably these bowls were made for the export trade,
and need not necessarily be regarded as typical of the Hung Chih
blue and white.

Cheng Te JH^i (1506-1521)

The reign of Cheng Te, though not mentioned in the Po wu
yao Ian and but briefly noticed in the T'ao shuo, must have been
an important period in the history of Chinese porcelain. The
yii ch'i ch'ang (Imperial ware factory) was rebuilt ^ and the direct
supervision of a palace eunuch renewed. The porcelain, we are
told in the T'ao lu, was chiefly blue painted and polychrome, the
finest being in the underglaze red known as chi hung. An important
factor in the blue decoration was the arrival of fresh supplies of
the Mohammedan blue.^ The story is that the governor of Yunnan
obtained a supply of this hui ch'ing from a foreign country, and that
it was used at first melted down with stone for making imitation
jewels. It was worth twice its weight in gold. When, however,
it was found that it would endure the heat of the kiln, orders were

1 Vol. ii., p. 277. * See vol. i, p. 154. » See p. 12.