Ming Dynasty Porcelain: A Collector's Guide by Reign

Almost all the Ming porcelain that collectors see today was made at Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi province in south-east China. The town had local supplies of the two ingredients of true porcelain: kaolin, or china clay, and porcelain stone. Mixed together and fired at well over 1,200°C, they form a hard, white body that rings when struck and lets light through where it is thin.

Two kinds of kiln worked side by side. The imperial kilns, on Zhushan hill in the centre of the town, made porcelain to order for the court, often to designs sent from the capital. Hundreds of private kilns made everything else: dishes, bowls and jars for everyday use across China, and wares for export to Japan, South-East Asia, the Middle East and, from the 16th century, Europe.

The distinction matters to collectors. Imperial wares are the pieces most often illustrated in books and most often copied, but they are a small fraction of what survives. Most Ming porcelain on the market is private-kiln work, known in Chinese as minyao. Our guide to Ming folk kiln porcelain explains why the best of it is collected in its own right.

Blue and white porcelain did not begin with the Ming. It was perfected at Jingdezhen under the Mongol Yuan dynasty in the 14th century, with cobalt imported from Persia, and the first Ming potters inherited its large dishes, jars and vases and its dense, layered decoration.

Hongwu (1368–1398). Under the founding emperor, underglaze copper red was used almost as often as cobalt blue. Copper is hard to fire and often came out greyish or brownish, and the blue of the period is frequently greyish too, possibly because imported cobalt was scarce. Peony and chrysanthemum scrolls fill large dishes, bowls and jars. Our guide to underglaze red covers these wares.

Yongle (1403–1424). The painting became lighter and more spacious, and imported cobalt gave a deep, rich blue. Yongle potters also made tianbai, "sweet white", a thin white porcelain sometimes decorated with faint designs under the glaze, known as anhua, "hidden decoration". Several shapes, among them flasks and ewers, were borrowed from Middle Eastern metalwork.

Xuande (1426–1435). This is the reign most collectors associate with classic Ming blue and white. The imported cobalt, applied thickly, gathered into dark, almost black spots, an effect Chinese connoisseurs call "heaping and piling". Xuande is also the first reign in which imperial wares were marked routinely. The brief Jianwen and Hongxi reigns left no recognisable style of their own. Our page on early Ming porcelain covers these reigns in more detail.

Between 1436 and 1464, during the Zhengtong, Jingtai and Tianshun reigns, imperial orders were reduced and marked pieces are almost unknown. Collectors call these years the Interregnum. The private kilns kept working, and their blue and white, often painted with figures in landscapes among swirling clouds, is now much better understood.

The Chenghua reign (1465–1487) is admired for its restraint. Imperial wares are small, thinly potted and finely finished, with a soft, slightly milky glaze and a pale, even blue from Chinese cobalt. The reign is famous for doucai, "contrasting colours", in which a design outlined in underglaze blue is filled with overglaze enamels and fired a second time. The small doucai chicken cups made for the court are among the most copied objects in Chinese ceramics.

Hongzhi (1488–1505) wares continue the gentle Chenghua style, and the reign is also known for fine yellow-glazed dishes and bowls. Our page on middle Ming porcelain takes these reigns in turn. Doucai and wucai explains the enamelled wares.

Under Zhengde (1506–1521) the blue grows stronger, and some imperial pieces carry inscriptions in Arabic or Persian, usually linked to the Muslim eunuchs and companions at court.

From the Jiajing reign (1522–1566), a cobalt known as "Mohammedan blue" (huihui qing), mixed with native ore, gave a vivid, purplish blue. The Jiajing Emperor was a devoted Daoist, and cranes, immortals, peaches and longevity characters appear throughout the wares of his reign. Enamelling grew bolder in wucai, "five colours", which combines underglaze blue with overglaze red, green, yellow and aubergine. Orders for the court reached enormous numbers, and quality became more uneven.

The short Longqing reign (1567–1572) has an unusual mark ending in zao rather than zhi. Under Wanli (1572–1620), the private kilns supplied the first large export trade to Europe with kraak porcelain: thinly potted dishes and bowls painted in radiating panels, whose name is usually linked to the Portuguese carracks that carried them. These reigns are covered in Ming porcelain from Zhengde to Wanli, and the export ware in our guide to kraak porcelain.

After the Wanli Emperor died in 1620, imperial orders dwindled and the private kilns took the lead. Under Tianqi (1621–1627) some made deliberately rustic blue and white for Japanese tea masters, now called ko-sometsuke. It is loosely painted, and the glaze often flaked away from the rims in firing, a feature Japanese collectors admired as mushikui, "moth-eaten".

In the Chongzhen reign (1628–1644), the private kilns developed the Transitional style that continued into the early Qing. Landscapes, scenes from novels and plays, and new shapes for Chinese and Dutch buyers replaced the old formulas, painted in a bright, clear blue. The period is covered in late Ming porcelain and in our guide to Transitional porcelain.

Monochrome glazes had their own high points. The copper-red bowls and stem cups of the Xuande reign, with a deep, even red, were copied for centuries, and the bright yellow of Hongzhi is among the finest Ming monochromes. White, blue and celadon glazes were also made throughout the dynasty.

Fahua, "bounded design", borrowed the look of cloisonné enamel on metal. Raised lines of slip outline the design and hold apart glazes of turquoise, deep blue, aubergine and yellow. It was made in Shanxi and at Jingdezhen, mainly in the late 15th and 16th centuries, on jars, vases and garden seats.

Away from Jingdezhen, the kilns of Dehua in Fujian province made blanc de chine, a white porcelain with a warm ivory tone and a glaze that fuses closely with the body. Late Ming Dehua potters are best known for figures of Buddhist and Daoist deities, above all Guanyin. Also in Fujian, the Zhangzhou kilns made boldly painted export dishes in the late Ming, long known in the West as Swatow ware after the port once thought to have shipped them.

An imperial Ming mark usually has six characters in underglaze blue, arranged in two columns of three within a double circle and read from the top right: Da Ming, "Great Ming", then the reign name, then nian zhi, "made in the reign of". Four-character marks leave out Da Ming. Marks became regular under Xuande, and from then on most imperial wares were marked, usually on the base, although some vases carry the mark on the neck or shoulder.

Many private-kiln pieces carry good-luck phrases, hall names or symbols instead, and a great many carry the mark of an earlier and more admired reign. Qing potters, above all in the Kangxi and Yongzheng reigns, reproduced Xuande and Chenghua marks as a sign of respect, and modern copies carry them routinely. A mark records what was written on a piece, not when it was made.

Our chart of Ming reign marks shows each mark with its dates. The guide to apocryphal marks explains why Ming marks appear on later porcelain, and Chinese porcelain marks covers how to read any mark.

No single feature dates a piece of Ming porcelain. Specialists read several together and look for them to agree.

The base. Many Ming vessels, particularly large dishes, jars and vases, have unglazed bases. The exposed body often shows orange or reddish flashing where iron in the clay reacted in the firing, and grit or kiln sand may be fused to the foot rim. Smaller imperial wares such as bowls usually have glazed bases, which often carry the mark. Our guide to foot rings and bases shows what to look for.

The glaze. Ming glazes usually have a faint bluish or greenish tint and are full of small bubbles, rather than glassy and pure white. Many show small firing faults: pinholes, specks, slight warping, or glaze contractions where the glaze pulled back from dust or grease on the body.

The blue. Each period has its own tone and way of sitting in the glaze, from the dark spotting of early 15th-century wares to the soft blue of Chenghua and the purplish blue of Jiajing. The blue in blue and white traces the changes.

Faults and wear can be imitated, and copies of Ming porcelain have been made for centuries. At the imperial kilns, pieces that failed inspection were smashed and buried, and excavations at Zhushan have recovered large quantities of these rejects, which now give specialists a firm reference for the imperial wares of each reign. For vases in particular, see how to tell if a Ming vase is real. Our guides to signs of age and detecting fakes cover the wider picture.

Our collection concentrates on Ming blue and white, most of it from the private kilns: vases, jars, dishes and bowls, with some pieces painted in underglaze red. Among them is a blue and white bowl with a Xuande mark, painted with lotus scrolls. A bowl with a Jiajing mark is painted with lotus outside and a fish inside. There is also a kendi painted in underglaze red with fish among plants and flowers.

Value depends on period, the quality of the potting and painting, condition, rarity and a documented history of ownership, as well as on the market at the time. What makes antique Chinese porcelain valuable explains each of these. Every piece in our Ming dynasty porcelain collection has its own page with detailed photographs and a form to request the price, and shipping is fully insured.

For the history behind the porcelain, see the Ming dynasty and our pages on the Ming emperors.