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Ching-Tê Chên And The Problem Of The ‘Imperial Kilns’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Margaret Medley
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Extract

It was in the year 1856, with the publication of Stanislas Julien's partial translation of the then fairly recently published T'ao-lu of 1815, that Europe and America first became aware of the possible existence of an ‘imperial kiln’ or group of kilns at Ching-te Chen Nor was this all, for according to Julien's translation such an ‘imperial kiln’ was established in the year 1369, the second year of the Hung-wu period. In view of Julien's standing in his own time, it is not unnatural that the facts as recorded by him with regard to this important event should have remained virtually unchallenged for the better part of a century. Jacquemart, in his monumental Histoire de la cÉramiqite, from which so many terms for wares and techniques have survived to become common currency, is heavily dependent upon his predecessor in the field.

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Articles
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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1966 , pp. 326 - 338
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1966

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References

1 Ching-tê Chên t'ao-lu by Lan P'u with the preface date 1815. The work was later revised by his nephew Chêng T'ing-kuei The edition used is the reprint of 1891.

2 Julien, Stanislas, Histoire et fabrication de la porcelaine chinoise, ouvrage traduit du Chinois, Paris, 1852, translator's preface, pp. lix-lxi.Google Scholar

3 Jacquemart, A., Histoire de la céramique, Paris, 1873, 64.Google Scholar

4 T'ao-shuo by Chu Yen in 6 chüan, published in 1774. The edition used is the reprint of 1914. Stephen W. Bushell, Description of Chinese pottery and porcelain being a translation of the T'ao-shuo, with introduction, notes and bibliography, Oxford, 1910.

5 Whenever Bushell refers to the ‘Official Record’ he means the Fou-liang hsien-chih He was lent a copy of the 1823 edition of Ch'iao Chu in 22 chiian by the then director of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. It has not been possible to trace this copy.

6 Description of Chinese pottery and porcelain, p. 55, n. 2.

7 Stephen Busbell, W., Oriental ceramic art, the collection of W. T. Walters (text edition), New York, 1899. Abbreviated to OCA.Google Scholar

8 Nobumori, Ozaki, ‘Chinese literature on ceramics’, Oriental Art, NS, iii,1, 1957, 25–7.Google Scholar

9 OCA, 189. The italics are Bushell's.

10 op. cit., 190.

11 Fou-liang hsien-chih, ch. 6, T'ao-chêng section of the monograph on natural resources, f.l r/v in the manuscript copy made for Sir Percival David from the edition of 1740, compiled by Li Chien-tê This edition differs fundamentally from the K'ang-hsi edition of 1682 by Wang Lin-yüan to which all other references in this paper have been made. Bushell's borrowed copy of the 1823 edition would have been nearer to the edition of 1740, so for this reference alone the Ch'ien-lung edition has been preferred.

12 OCA, 643–4. Bushell gives a summary of the histories of both these works and the dates given above are those of the editions he used. The work quoted in these two local stories is the Chiang-hsi shêng ta-chih by Wang Tsung-mu of 1556 and issued with supplements in the Wan-li period not earlier than 1590.

13 Bushell's ch. xxiii, ‘Chinese bibliography in relation to the ceramic art’, OCA, 639–99, is a useful one and he is meticulous in stating his editions; that these editions are not always the best available to-day can hardly be held against him.

14 Pope, John A., Chinese porcelains from the Ardebil shrine, Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, 1956, 28. On pp. 27–33 Pope evaluates the Chinese sources.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Hobson, R. L., Chinese pottery and porcelain, 2 vols., London, 1915; see I, 153–4, andGoogle Scholar

16 Ernst Zimmermann, Ckinesische Porzellan, seine Geschichte, Kunst und Technik, Leipzig, 1913, and the same author's Chinesische Porzellan und die übrigen keramischen Erzeugnisse Chinas, Leipzig, 1923, agree in using 1369, as does also W. B. Honey in The ceramic art of China, and other countries of the Far East, London, 1944. In connexion with Honey's study it is only fair to point out that his book was intended as an aesthetic approach to the subject rather than a critical historical survey, but the book has had such wide circulation that it seems important to note it here.

17 Jenyns, Soame, Ming pottery and porcelain, London, 1953, 34–8.Google Scholar

18 Published as a whole number in Toji ‘Oriental Ceramics’, viii, 1, 1936. Jenyns unfortunately gives the volume as 3 and omits the page references. Ozaki at that time believed (pp. 29–30) that there were historical reasons for accepting the thirty-fifth year of Hung-wu (1402), but does not discuss these. Later in his Mindai no tōji ‘Ceramics of the Ming period’, Tokyo, 1942, he expresses a new view (pp. 7–8). It is that the first date is too early, and the second too late, and that what has happened has been to write ‘thirty-fifth’ instead of twenty-fifth He refers to the Ta Ming hui-tien , ch. 194 (see Chung-wén shu-chü edition Taipei, 1963, vol. v, p. 2631, lb) to a passage dated to the twenty-sixth year concerned with the manufacture of porcelain vessels for ‘general use’ the requirements for which were to be estimated in terms of men and materials, and he interprets the passage as meaning that the kilns were established in 1392, apparently regardless of the error of one year. What he does not seem to have realized at the time was that the phrase Ofy does not usually mean wares for use only in the imperial household, but wares intended for use throughout the palace precinct, in the storerooms and in the ministerial offices of the nei-fu As the Ta Ming hui-tien text continues in the next sentence ‘… if the requirements are large craftsmen should be moved to the capital and kilns set up; if they are small the wares should be made privately in Jao-chou fu and Ch'u-chou fu’, it is unlikely that at this time any wares were made at what is normally understood to mean an imperial kiln—one which produced wares of the highest quality, in accordance with a prescribed range of designs. The unskilled labour needed for brick and glazed tile making, which is also mentioned in the same passage, implies that budgeting economically was more important than making ‘imperial’ wares, which would have involved a considerable outlay of capital, as well as a careful reorganization of the labour force in order to achieve the high standards of craftsmanship that would be expected.

19 Ming-shih compiled by Chang T'ing-yü and others.

20 Mingshih-lu .

21 Jenyns, Ming pottery and porcelain, 38.

22 Lion-Goldschmidt, Daisy, Les potteries et porcelaines chinoises, Paris, 1957, 90.Google Scholar

23 Sullivan, Michael, Chinese ceramics, bronzes and jades in the collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, London, 1963, 105–6.Google Scholar

24 Ching-tê Chên t'ao-tz't shih-kao ‘Draft history of the ceramics of Ching-tê Chên’ compiled by Chiang-hsi shéng ching-kung-yeh t'ing t'ao-tz'ū, yen-chü so-pien ‘The Ceramic Research Department of the Chiang-hsi Province Light Industries Office’, Peking, 1959, 95–7. The only text referred to, and quoted from in these few pages, is the Fou-liang hsien-chih, but no indication is given of the edition used. As stated above, p. 327, n. 11, there are fundamental differences between various editions of this work, so that this compilation cannot, in its present form, be regarded as of any great value.

25 Pope, Ardebil, 33–8. The author discusses ‘imperial’ wares solely to define the term as regards quality.

26 Garner, Sir Harry, Oriental blue and white, London, 1954Google Scholar, and the same author's introduction to the catalogue of The arts of the Ming dynasty, an exhibition organized by the Arts Council of Great Britain and the Oriental Ceramic Society, London, 1957, 1–12.Google Scholar

27 Ayers, John, The Seligman collection of oriental art. Vol. II.Google ScholarChinese and Korean pottery and porcelain, London, 1964, 20.Google Scholar

28 Arthur Lane, ‘Ceramics’, in The arts of the Ming dynasty, 27.

29 It is interesting to notice the Japanese attitude to the problem as recorded in Sekai tōjīzenshū ‘Catalogue of world ceramics’, xi, 1955. Although there is no reference to any ‘imperial kiln’ in the main body of the text, a chart at the end of the book includes both dates, 1369 and 1402, without comment.

30 Sakuma Shigeo ‘Mindai lceitohu-ten yogyo no ikosatsu’ ‘A study of the ceramic industry at Ching-tê Chen’, in Shimizu hakushi tsuitō kinen Mindai-shi ronsō ‘Studies in Ming history in memory of Dr. Shimizu [Taiji]’, Tokyo, 1962, 457–87. Abbreviated to Mindai-shi ronsō.

31 T'ao-lu, ch. 5, 4a.

32 Fou-liang hsien-chih, ch. 5, 39a. The words in square brackets occur in most texts and have been added in this instance for the sake of clarity. The Ch'ien-lung edition of 1740 actually includes the whole of both sentences as given here, relying on the Chiang-hsi shêng ta-chih.

33 Ta Ming hui-tien, ch. 201, 2715, 25b.

34 This is also borne out by the Ming T'ai-tsu shih-lu Taipei, 1962, ch. 44, 0872, 8b. The Board of Rites submitted a memorial asking that all but one type of vessel out of a series of five, should be made of porcelain. This was agreed by the Emperor in the eighth month, i.e. September 1369. Nothing is recorded as to where these vessels were to be made, or about their colour, and there is no evidence that they were made immediately.

35 In the first half of the fifteenth century sacrificial vessels were made at Tz'ŭ-chou as well as Jao-chou. See below, p. 335.

36 Mindai-shi ronsō, 460. This edition of the Jao-chou fu-chih, from which Sakuma quotes, has not been available to me.

37 ibid., 460–1.

38 Chiang Ch'i T'ao chi lüeh , included in Fou-liang hsien-chih of 1682 as T'ao-chi fu , ch. 4, 46b et seq.

39 All the sources consulted in connexion with the preparation of this paper.

40 Only two complete copies of this text survive, one in the National Library in Peking, and the other in Naikaku' Bunka in Tokyo. I am grateful to Professor Denis Twitchett for his help in procuring for me a microfilm of the ceramic section from the Naikaku Bunka copy. Chiang-hsi shêng ta-chih, ch. 7, 2a. The Ch'ien-lung edition of the Fou-liang hsien-chih quotes this whole passage verbatim, but the K'ang-hsi edition of 1682 omits it altogether.

41 ibid., ch. 7, 3a.

42 Shih-wu yüan-hui ch. 28, 14a. The order of the characters of this book title appear to differ, perhaps from one edition to another, unless it has been wrongly quoted by both Sakuma and Ching-tê Chên t'ao-tz'ŭ shih-kao. The title given here is that in the Ku-yü ts'ung-shu of 1796 to which reference has been made.

43 Ko-ku yao-lun by Ts'ao Chao . This work was completed in three chüan with the author's preface dated 1388. This extremely rare book was greatly expanded, and re-arranged in the fifteenth century by Wang Tso and it is generally to this later work that one is compelled to refer. Its value as a source-book is therefore questionable.

44 Shih-wu yüan-hui, ch. 28, 14a.

45 Fou-liang hsien-chih, ch. 8, pt. 3, 32a-b.

46 Chiang-hsi fung-chih, Chia-ching edition, 1525, ch. 8, 26a. The Yung-chêng edition of 1732 omits all this, preferring to rely on the Chiang-hsi shêng ta-chih.

47 ibid., ch. 8, 29b.

48 Ming shih-kao , compiled by Wang Hung-hsü who offered his ‘Draft history of the Ming’ to the throne in 1723.

49 Jen-tsung died in t h e sixth month of 1425.

50 Minshi shokkashi yaknchü ‘The Shih-huo-chih of the Mingshih’: translated into Japanese with notes. Edited by Dr. Sei Wada (Tōyō Bunko Publications, ser. A, no. 40, 1957), Chinese and Japanese text. Vol. II, Japanese text, p. 1041. The Ming-shih kao exactly repeats this, see 2, 300c.

51 Ming Hsüan-tsung shih-lu ch. 9, 0231, 4a. It is not yet known when the practice of marking porcelain with a nien-hao began, and there are none so far recorded of the Hung-wu period that can be regarded as genuine. The mark of Yung-lo (1402–24) is known, but is perhaps only genuine on a few pieces of white ware, and possibly on two small blue and white bowls, which were published by Ch'ên Wan-li in Ku-kung po-wu-yüan yüan-k'an ‘Report of the Palace Museum’, no 1, 1958, p. 61. I have not seen these pieces, and the photographs so far published are unfortunately so indifferent that it is impossible to be sure about them. It is possible that the white pieces, which all seem to be bowls and stem-cups, were in fact made early in the Hsiian-te period and formed part of the order with which Chang Shan was concerned. Whatever the explanation, the number of marked pieces that may be attributed safely to the early fifteenth century must be far fewer than the number so far attributed to the period solely on the basis of the mark. It is, for instance, extremely unlikely that any of the so-called ‘bodiless’ type with an-hua decoration belong to the period; they should perhaps be assigned to the eighteenth century.

52 ibid., ch. 34, 0863, 4a.

53 Mindai-shi ronsō, 462.

54 The text quoted by Sakuma runs,

55 Chiang-hsi t'ung-chih, ch. 8, 26a.

56 Ta Ming hui-tien, ch. 194, 2632, 4a.

57 Chiang-hsi t'ung-chih, Yung-chêng edition of 1732, ch. 27, 7a.

58 Ta Ming-hui tien, ch. 194, 2631, 2b.

59 Ming Hsüan-tsung shih-lu, ch. 6, 2a.

60 Ta Ming hui-tien, ch. 194, 2632, 3b-4a. This is the first instance of specific forms and designs being mentioned; after 1433 there are a number of orders of this kind, perhaps many. Careful study of the Chiang-hsi shêng ta-chih may well yield interesting results.