Page 366 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

2o8 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

other on-glaze colours being used chiefly on the relatively modern

wares decorated in famille rose enamels. Similarly the ordinary

script is usual in marks, and seal characters are quite exceptional
on porcelain earlier than the eighteenth century.

It is not safe to take the older date-marks on porcelain at their
face value. The Chinese with their proverbial veneration for
antiquity habitually placed the date-marks of the classical reigns
on their porcelain whether decorated in the style of the period
mentioned or not. Already in the sixteenth century the Hsiian

Te and Ch'eng Hua marks were used in this way, and in the K'ang

Hsi period the names of these two classic reigns weve used more
frequently than that of the K'ang Hsi period itself. In fact the

Hsiian Te and Ch'eng Hua are on the whole the most familiar

marks of all, though the actual wares of these two periods are
among the rarest. The date-marks of the other Ming Emperors
are less frequently plagiarised, except upon the deliberate imita-
tions of the wares of the time, such as those made at the Impe-

rial factory in the Yung Cheng period, which we may be sure were

carefully marked with the appropriate nien hao. Moreover, the

Japanese, who have expended much ingenuity on reproducing Ming
wares, have made free with Ming date-marks, especially those of

Chia Ching and Wan Li.

In the year 1677 the potters at Ching-te Chen were forbidden by
an order of the district prefect ^ to inscribe the period-name of the
Emperor or any sacred writing on their porcelain, lest the names

should be profaned in the breaking of the ware. It is certain that
this prohibition was not effective for long ; but probably the current
date-mark was suppressed for a time at least, and it is quite likely

that we should trace to this interval the custom of putting symbols
or conventional marks inside the double ring which was usually
occupied by the nien hao, a common practice in the K'ang Hsi period.
In many cases, too, the rings were left empty ; but it is a mistake
to regard this as an infallible sign of K'ang Hsi manufacture, for
it is a thing which might happen at any time through negligence,
the rings being made by one person and the marks -wTitten by

1 See T'ao lu, bk. viii., fol. 14 verso (quoting the I chih) : " In the sixteenth year of

K'ang Hsi the district magistrate, Chang Ch'i-chung, a man of Yang-ch'eng, forbade the

workmen of Ching-te Chen to inscribe on the porcelain vessels the nien hao of the Emperor

^^)or the handwriting (tzu chi of the holy men, to prevent their being broken and

injured."