Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/229

the Chêng-hwa fashions. The wares of both these potters belong, therefore, to a category distinct, in respect of style, from the characteristic Lung-ching and Wan-li enamelled porcelains. It has already been recorded that with the close of the Wan-li era (1619) the porcelain manufacture of the Ming dynasty ceased to flourish. Nor does it seem to have sensibly recovered its previous prosperity until the Tsing Tartars had occupied the throne for a considerable time. In fact there is an interval of 42 years, from 1619 to 1661, concerning the keramic productions of which little can be stated with certainty. Occasionally specimens of enamelled or blue-and-white porcelains are found which strongly resemble the Wan-li genre, having heavy, somewhat coarse pâte, and decoration of a brilliant but not over-refined character. These pieces may, indeed, have been produced at the Kang-hsi factories before the latter had begun to develop the technical excellence and artistic taste that made their chefs-d'œuvre so famous. But the probability is that they belong to the last twenty-five years of the Ming dynasty, or to the first era—Shun-chih (1644–1661)—of the Tsing. The point is not of much importance. The very rare surviving specimens of enamelled porcelain that bear the Shun-chih mark show the era to be unworthy of special attention from a keramic point of view.

With the accession of the great emperor Kang-hsi (1662–1722) the imperial factories passed under the direction of the celebrated Tang, and the manufacture of enamelled porcelains, in common with that of all other wares, received a great impulse. The quality of the pâte soon began to show an improve-