Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/216

 CHINA

temporis acti. To maintain that the Chéng-hwa enam- elled porcelains remained always without peers would be an exaggeration, though they certainly deserved much of the praise bestowed on them.

Among the experts of the era the names of two have been transmitted. One, Ko Tan-jin, was re- markable for ability in depicting a hen and her chickens or two fighting cocks— designs which subsequently came to be regarded as the chefs- d euvre of the Chéng-hwa era. The other, Ko Chu, was famous as a manufacturer of wine-cups. Chinese records mention that, from the close of the Ming dynasty downwards, ‘‘ every man of taste tried to put wine-cups of Chéng-hwa porcelain before his guests,’ and the same fancy exists equally strong among fashionable Japanese to-day. Another Chinese work, written about 1640 and translated by Dr. Bushell, says : — “On the days of new moon and of full moon I often went, while at the capital, to the fair at the Buddhist temple Tsu-én-ssu, where rich men thronged to look at the old porcelain bowls exhibited there. Plain white cups of Wan-i (1573-1619) porcelain were several taels of silver each ; those with the marks of Hsuan-té or Chéng-hwa, twice as much more, up to the tiny cups decorated with fighting cocks, which could not be bought for less than a hundred taels of the purest silver, pottery being valued far more highly than jade.’’ It is plain that very few of these cele- brated cups have ever found their way out of China; Western collectors have not yet lived up to the stand- ard of paying a hundred and fifty dollars for a baby cup, about an inch and a half in depth and as much in diameter. One hundred and fifty dollars, too, does not appear to have been the limit, for it is recorded

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