Page 367 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Marks on Chinese Pottery and Porcelain 209

another. There are, besides, well authenticated instances of the

empty double ring on Wan Li porcelain, ^ and on post K'ang Hsi

wares. It was, however, such a frequent occurrence on the K'ang

Hsi wares that the modern imitators make a common practice of

leaving the rings blank on their copies of the K'ang Hsi blue and
white. It is not clear whether the prefect's prohibition applied to
the names of Ming emperors, but probably it did not, as it is un-
hkely that the adherents of the reigning dynasty would be sensitive
about the titles of the house which they had exterminated. In
any case, Ming marks, especially those of the fifteenth century,

are very common on the K'ang Hsi porcelain, and the K'ang Hsi
mark itself is comparatively rare except on the specimens which

must belong to the later years of the reign.

En revanche, the K'ang Hsi mark is freely used on quite modern

wares, that period being now regarded as classical ; so that we are

confronted with the paradox that if a specimen of fine quality ^

is marked Ch'eng Hua, it may generally be assumed that it was made

in the K'ang Hsi period, while the bulk of the pieces which bear
the K'ang Hsi mark are of modern date.

The Yung Cheng and Ch'ien Lung porcelains are highly esteemed

to-day, and consequently the marks of these periods are considered
worthy of a place on modern imitations ; but on the whole the bulk
of the specimens bearing these marks will be found to belong to
the period indicated, and the imitations are generally so coarse
as to be unmistakable. The temptation to borrow the reign marks

of the subsequent periods is so slight that we may safely accept

the later marks as correct indications of date.
Marks written in enamel colours and even in gold become in-

creasingly common on the famille rose porcelains from the Yung

Cheng period onwards, the red mark being more familiar on the
modern wares than the blue ; and seal characters frequently replace
the ordinary script in the reign marks of the Yung Cheng and sub-
sequent periods. Date marks in seal form before the eighteenth
century are very unusual, and should be regarded with suspicion.

It will be seen from the foregoing notes that Chinese date marks
must be treated with great caution. In fact it is safer to regard
them merely as secondary evidence, first basing one's judgment

1 See Catalogue B. F. A., 1910, E 4.

" This qualification is very necessary, because there are plenty of inferior pieces,

with the Ch'eng Hua mark which are quite modern.

—I 2 B