Page 45 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Hsuan Te (1426-1435) 13

Possibly, however, this was not so much due to the nature of the
material as to the method of its application, for Chinese writers
are by no means unanimous about the paleness of the Hsiian Te
blue. The ChHng pi ts'ang, for instance, states that " they used
su-p'o-ni blue and painted designs of dragons, phoenixes, flowers,
birds, insects, fish and similar forms, deep and thickly heaped
and piled and very lovely."

Authentic specimens of Hsiian Te blue and white are virtually
unknown, but the mark of the period is one of the commonest on
Chinese porcelain of relatively modern date. In most cases this
spurious dating means nothing more than that the period named
was one of high repute ; but there is a type of blue and white,
usually bearing the period mark of Hsiian Te, which is so mannered
and characteristic that one feels the certainty that this really

represents one kind at least of the Hsiian porcelain. It is usually
decorated in close floral scrolls, and the blue is light dappled with
darker shades, which are often literally " heaped and piled " {tui

fo) over the paler substratum.
I have seen examples of this style belonging to various periods,

mostly eighteenth century, but some certainly late Ming^ (see
Plate 67, Fig. 4). Seven examples of Hsiian blue and white porce-
lain are figured in Hsiang's Album,- comprising an ink pallet, a vase
shaped like a section of bamboo, a goose-shaped wine jar, a vase
with an elephant on the cover, a tea cup, a sacrificial vessel, and
a lamp with four nozzles. In five of these the blue is confined to
slight pencilled borders, merely serving to set off the white ground,
which is compared to driven snow. The glaze is rich and thick,
and of uneven surface, rising in slight tubercles likened to " grains
of millet." This is the " orange skin " glaze. The blue in each

case is hui hu^ ta ch'ing (deep Mohammedan blue). Of the two

remaining instances, one is painted with a dragon in clouds, and
the other with "dragon pines," and in the latter case the glaze
is described as " lustrous like mutton fat jade," and the blue as
" of intensity and brilliance to dazzle the eye."

The impression conveyed by all these examples is that they

1 See Cat. B. F. A., 1910, L 23 ; a pilgrim bottle belonging to Mrs, Halsey, in-
scribed after export to India with the word Alamgir, a name of the famous Aurungzib.
Cf. also the fine cylindrical vase in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Case 2), Avith
floral scrolls in this type of blue combined with underglaze red, and the Hsiian Te mark.

2 Op. cit., Nos. 9, 31, 37, 39, 48, 69 and 83.
^ Hui hu is a variant for hui hui (Mohammedan).