Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/215

placed in the first rank. As for the blue employed, it was of ordinary quality. In the latter respect the Chêng-hwa porcelains were not comparable with those of the Hsuan-tê era; but in the matter of enamelled decoration the former far surpassed not only everything that had preceded but also everything that succeeded them. Their merit consisted in the skill of the painters and the beauty of the colouring materials. In a work entitled 'History of Yu-chang Keramics,' it is stated that among the porcelains of the Chêng-hwa era there were wine-vessels and cups ornamented with barn-yard fowl. These were of exceptional excellence. On the upper part was depicted a peony plant, and below a hen with her chickens, full of life and movement." There were also shallow, wide-mouthed cups with handles, decorated with grapes in coloured enamels. These were extremely beautiful. Then came cups ornamented with figure-subjects and lotus plants, or with grasshoppers; and then wine-cups, thin as paper, with blue flowers under the glaze. The names of these, like their shapes, were various. . . . In former times the Ming porcelains were classed in order of merit as follows:—First, those of the Hsuan-tê era; second, those of the Chêng-hwa era; third, those of the Yung-lo era; and fourth, those of the Chia-ching era. But the pieces of the Hsuan-tê period decorated with coloured enamels were far from equalling those of the Chêng-hwa period. In truth the designs painted upon porcelains of this latter era had an air of life and movement which no painter has since been able to imitate." It is necessary to make some allowance for the conservative propensities of this writer, who, like all Chinese connoisseurs, was evidently laudator