Page 36 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

280 MING.

with what may be taken to be the well-made distinct characters
of the Imperial factory system of marking. As time goes on
these may be less heavily traced ; but there is every reason to
believe that the nien-hao were always, as we shall see, clearly
and carefully made, while the badly written ones probably
emanated from the china on which
private factories, although
the same appear is often of the best quality in all respects.
No. 490. Jar, with cover. Height, 11 inches. Glazed base,
with Kea-tsing mark, without the blue rings. This piece is
coated with a dull red enamel, and ornamented with yellow
five-claw dragons, these being the only two colours employed.
The drawing is fairly good, but the colours are not at all
vitreous, and it might be a wooden jar decorated with oil
colours, for as yet they could only paint in polychrome on
biscuit, the art of doing so over the glaze not yet having been
discovered.
No. 491. A six-lobed, conical-shaped jar. Height, 15^ inches;
diameter at top, 8i inches. With unglazed base, except a cir-
cular of white in the centre, on which the mark,
plaque glaze
" in blue
Kea-tsing," 1522-1567, appears ; but this, unfortu-
has been omitted to be The decoration
nately, photographed.
consists of six dragons, green, red, and yellow, alternating in six
circular medallions, the rest of the surface being covered with
lotus scroll-work ; the predominant colours are red and yellow,
with but little these are not vitreous enamels. The sweet
green,
flags top and bottom are in green and yellow, with red tips
between ; the ornamental band at bottom merely consists of
brown on the white This to be
designs ground. piece appears
correctly marked, and the colours are in the same dull pig-
ments that seem to have been in use about this time. There
is none of that in the
brilliancy porcelain itself, or in the
colours it is decorated with, that we find in the Kang-he
"
Mr. at I can find
productions. Hippisley, p. 398, says :
nothing in the works of Chinese writers on this subject to
justify the concession of a greater antiquity than the early
of the i.e. the first half of the fifteenth
part Ming dynasty,
to the ornamentation of vases with and
century, arabesques
scroll-work, with landscapes, historical scenes, or genre paint-
ings in several colours."
The reader must remember that the of this
products