Page 242 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINA

temporis acti. To maintain that the Cheng-hwa enam-

elled porcelains remained always without peers would

be an exaggeration, though they certainly deserved

much of the praise bestowed on them.

Among the experts of the era the names of two
have been transmitted. One, Ko Tan-jin, was re-

markable for ability in depicting a hen and her

chickens or two fighting cocks designs which

subsequently came to be regarded as the chefs-

d'oeuvre of the Cheng-hwa era. The other, Ko Chu,

was famous as a manufacturer of wine-cups. Chinese

records mention that, from the close of the Ming
"
dynasty downwards, every man of taste tried to put

wine-cups of Cheng-hwa porcelain before his guests,"

and the same fancy exists equally strong among

fashionable Japanese to-day. Another Chinese work,

written about 1640 and translated by Dr. Bushell,

says : " On the days of new moon and of full moon

I often went, while at the capital, to the fair at the

Buddhist temple Tsu-en-ssu, where rich men thronged

to look at the old porcelain bowls exhibited there.

Plain white cups of Wan-li (15731619) porcelain

were several taels of silver each those with the marks
;

of Hsuan-te or Cheng-hiva, twice as much more, up

to the tiny cups decorated with fighting cocks, which

could not be bought for less than a hundred taels of

the purest silver, pottery being valued far more highly

than jade." It is plain that very few of these cele-

brated cups have ever found their way out of China
;

Western collectors have not yet lived up to the stand-

ard of paying a hundred and fifty dollars for a baby

cup, about an inch and a half in depth and as much
in diameter. One hundred and fifty dollars, too, does

not appear to have been the limit, for it is recorded

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