Page 144 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

78 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

and plant designs with curious feathery foHage traced with consider-

able delicacy. The border of running floral scroll has the flowers

outlined in dots, and the whole execution of the piece is as dis-
tinctive as the strange coarse base which shows a brown-red biscuit
and heavy accretions of sand and grit at the foot rim. The same

base and the same peculiarities of design appeared on a similar
dish with celadon glaze exhibited by Mrs. Halsey at the Burlington
Fine Arts Club in 1910/ and in the British Museum there are other

dishes clearly of the same make, but with (1) crackled grey white
glaze and coarsely painted blue decoration, and (2) with greenish
white glaze and enamelled designs in iron red and the Ming blue
green. It is clear that we have to deal here with the productions of
one factory, and though we have no direct clue to its identity, it

certainly catered for the export trade to India and the islands
;

for the enamelled dishes of this type have been found in Sumatra.

Mrs. Halsey's dish came from India, and fragments of the blue and

enamelled types were found in the ruins of the palace at Bijapur,^

which was destroyed by Aurungzebe in 1686. Probably the factory

was situated in Fukien or Kuangtung, where it would be in

direct touch with the southern export trade, and the style of
the existing specimens points to the late Ming as the period of

its activity.

The process of marbling or " graining" has been tried by potters
all the world over, and the Chinese were no exceptions. The effect
is produced either by slips of two or more coloured clays worked

about on the surface, or by blending layers of clays in two or more
colours (usually brown and white) in the actual body. Early ex-
amples of this marbling occur among the T'ang wares, and Mr.
Eumorfopoulos has examples of the Ming and later periods. One

of these, a figure with finely crackled buff glaze and passages of
brown and white marbling in front and on the back, has an incised
inscription, stating that it was modelled by Ch'en Wen-ching in

the year 1597.^

The use of underglaze red in the Wan Li period has already

been mentioned (p. 59), and though Chinese writers classed it as

A^ Cat., 33. In the Lymans Collection in Boston there are several examples of

this ware, including specimens with dark and light coffee brown grounds and a jar

in blue and white.

A* collection of these is in the British Museum, and they include many types of

late Ming export porcelains.

K» Cat B. F. A., 37.