Page 49 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

MING.
285
better pieces of famille verte with blue under the glaze, said
to belong to this reign, do not seem to be marked, and every-
thing appears to point to their being of later date, so that
perhaps we have in this sweetmeat box and similar pieces the
nearest to the famille verte that the
approach Ming dynasty
was capable of producing.

TEEN-KE, 1620-1627.
THE this time was in a disturbed
country by very state,
and manufactories were at work, for the
only private probably
Imperial works seem to have been closed about this date. The
mark is seldom mentioned as been met with, and
very having
then it is said to have been on pieces, painted blue, but we
have to us in an as to the
nothing guide forming opinion
merits of the of this In the Journal the
productions period. of
"
Peking Oriental Society, p. 118, Dr. Bushell tells us : There
is an interval of about half a century between the death of
Wan-li and the reign of K'ang-hsi when the Imperial potteries
were which time little, if was
re-opened ; during any, porcelain
and to the
produced, it is generally easy distinguish painted
of the two The decoration in enamel
porcelain periods.
colours of the new is characterized the addition
dynasty by
of a brilliant blue colour over the glaze to the old colours,
which seems never to occur in a Ming specimen."

TSUNG-CHING, 1628-1644.

THIS, being the last of the Ming periods, was, of necessity,
a very disturbed one : things had been going from bad to
worse for and now the end had come. One vase in the
years,
Salle collection is said to have been dated 1636, but the wares
of this are unknown to us.
period quite