Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/164

 are the instances of potters putting their own names on their works. Thus there is no hope of identifying the maker of a piece, and the fact that such and such great artists lived at such and such eras, possesses only historic interest.

With the close of the Wan-li era, the production of Ming porcelains may be said to have terminated. The dynasty continued to occupy the throne until 1644, but its last two decades were so disturbed by struggles with the Tartars that the keramic industry was virtually deprived of imperial patronage, as well as of the custom of the upper classes. It is, however, mentioned in the Tao-lu that during these years of comparative inactivity there were produced, at the factories in Siao-nan street, Ching-tê-chên, various porcelains of small size. They were called "Siao-nan-yao," after the place of their manufacture, but sometimes also Hia-moh-yao, or "frog-sized wares," in allusion to their tiny, squat form. Their pâte had a yellow tinge; they were thin, but very solid, and in such of them as had blue decoration sous couverte, the designs were limited to flowers and leaves of the epidendrum (Chinese, Lan)—a plant that has always been highly esteemed by Chinese and Japanese—or to one or two circles round their outer rim. Specimens of this insignificant character do not redeem the general unproductiveness of the era as to blue-and-white porcelain.

The dynasty of Tsing Tartars, now ruling in China, was established at Peking in 1644. During the first reign, Shun-chih, no marked revival of art industries seems to have taken place. A certain quantity of blue-and-white hard-paste porcelain was, however, manufactured. Such specimens as survive