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- Cobalt oxide used to produce blue and white for most of the Ming dynasty was Chinese cobalt oxide which normally contains manganese impurities which give a blackish or greyish colour to the blue. The expensive Persian cobalt oxide does not have such impurities and the availability of Persian cobalt, particularly in the Ming Jiajing period (1522-1566), accounts for the finely coloured blue and white pieces produced in that reign and occasionally in other reigns.
The painting on blue and white pieces is normally done by outlining the object or pattern required and then filling in the outlines with wash.
The earlier pieces frequently show an orangy rust discolouration on the unglazed base because of the iron impurities in the clay. Indeed, this iron impurity discolouration is generally present on Ming pieces wherever the unglazed clay is showing. The refinement of the clay in the Chenghua period, however, appears to have been so good that this feature does not seem to occur on the finer Chenghua pieces.
Great care should be exercised in assigning marked pieces to the period of the mark, as early marks were regularly used on later pieces. For instance, both the Xuande and Chenghua marks were frequently used on later pieces, these being considered the classic reigns of Ming dynasty. The use of the Chenghua mark in particular was prevalent in the middle and later Kangxi period and more used than the Kangxi mark at the time (1690-1722). I have one small dish where the potter must have forgotten the mark he was writing and used, in the mark, the first character of Chenghua and the second character of Kangxi, i.e. �Cheng Xi� (fig. 87).
However, the calligraphy of the Chenghua mark at this time (1690-1722) differs consid�erably from the writing used on the genuine imperial marks of Chenghua�s reign which tend to have the characters of the mark written close together and are frequently put in a rectangular cartouche. It seems also that even during the Chenghua (1465-1487) period, pieces of blue and white were mass-produced with only two or three workmen actually writing the marks on the imperial pieces. It is, therefore, sometimes possible to tell whether a piece is likely to be a Chenghua piece from the actual calligraphy used, though later pieces may attempt deliberate forgery of the mark and its calligraphy so that it is dangerous to place too much reliance on the calligraphy used.
After the reign of Chenghua, the production of blue and white seems to have expanded enormously and the beautifully spaced designs of the earlier 15th century pieces seem to have given way to rather cluttered designs where almost every free space within the design is filled up with decoration. The imperial pieces of Hongzhi (1488-1505) and Zhengde (1506-1521) still continue to feature dragons and other mythical animals but the non�imperial pieces would have the dragons and mythical animals weaving in and out of lotus scrolls or waves and by the start of the Jiajing reign (1522-1566) this tendency had even spread to some of the imperial pieces. The dragons in the late 15th and early 16th centuries are drawn with so-called 'spectacle eyes� which are very distinctive. The Mohammedan influence in Zhengde has been well documented and several pieces at this time seem to have included arabic characters in their decoration. Also one of the features of the Zhengde period was the numerous new shapes sometimes derived from arabic metalware, which were introduced into the ceramic repertoire at this time.
The export of blue and white pieces which had started in the mid-Yuan period, seems to have been reduced to a trickle by the early Ming. However, the ceramic export trade never stopped and high quality blue and white pieces were exported to Persia, Indonesia and India at that time. The early 15th century coincided with China�s great maritime explorations under its famous admiral Zheng He and it is therefore surprising that no export quality blue and white wares seem to have been exported at the time. The high quality pieces, which have come to light, could well have been tribute presentations of Zheng He�s numerous explorations. The export trade in blue and white seems to have started up again in the late 15th century about 1480 to 1490 a.d., and continued thereafter until the 19th century.
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