Page 348 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

200 CHINESE PORCELAIN.

The law, however, does not seem to have dealt with ladies'
dress, which appears to have remained much the same as in
bygone times. Many hundreds of Chinese gentlemen accepted
death or banishment rather than submit ; and M. Jacquemart
argues that if the Chinese had such a dislike to the change,
they would never have decorated their china with mandarin
and therefore these must be of
figures, j)ieces Japanese origin.
But, notwithstanding the resistance of many, by the middle of
the of what we call the mandarin dress had
reign Ivang-he,
become
general.
We are certain that all china so must have been
painted
made subsequent to 1644. Unfortunately, we are not in like
manner able to say that all porcelain with figures dressed in
the old style must have been made previous to that date ; for
the the
present dynasty,
there can be no doubt that, during
Chinese have continued to imitate and the
reproduce Ming
the Chinese their new
pieces, and, having adopted religion,
rulers could not well to their the worthies of
object copying
China in the dress they had been represented in for thousands
of In fact, we have seen that in theatrical
years. representa-
tions the actors had to in the old of dress, in case
appear style
they should in any way hold the Tartar regime up to ridi-
cule. There seems reason to believe that what we know
every
as mandarin china was not manufactured much before the
and was called into
Yung Ching (1723-1736) period, probably
being by the trading companies finding it to their advantage
to suj)ply Europe with porcelain decorated in a manner to
with the accounts to hand of the habits and customs
agree
of the Chinese. By that time the Tartar rule was firmly
established, sentiment as to the change of dress had died out,
so that there was no need for either the rulers or people to
to the barbarians with what
object being supplied they wanted,
the more so that the business was likely to be profitable to
both classes in China.
M.
Jacquemart tells us that, in 1664, 44,943 pieces of very
rare Japanese porcelain arrived in Holland ; but Kaempfer
says that, in 1690, when he went to Japan, the Dutch were only
"
allowed to export "some hundred bales of china-ware annually :
so that if the above-named was received in Holland in
quantity
161)4, even allowing for the indirect shipments from Japan that