It is clear that the best of the Yüan wares made at Ching-tê Chên was plain white or white with engraved and moulded designs; and in this connection it is interesting to find an example of _shu fu_ porcelain described and illustrated in Hsiang's Album.[363] It is a small, bottle-shaped vase with bulbous mouth, engraved with a dragon and cloud design, and stated to be marked with the characters _shu fu_ under the base. We are told that in colour, form, and design it was copied from a specimen of the Northern Ting ware, and that the _shu fu_ ware, itself copied from Ting Chou originals, served as a model for the fine white engraved porcelains of the Yung Lo and Hsüan Tê periods of the Ming dynasty. It stood, in short, midway between the soft, opaque-looking, creamy white Sung ware and the thin, hard, and highly translucent Ming porcelain, such as the white Yung Lo bowl in the Franks Collection (see Plate 59). Just such an intermediate position as this is held by a bowl[364] in the British Museum with white, translucent body, soft-looking glaze of faint creamy tinge and engraved design of phœnixes and peony plants in Sung style. It has, moreover, a raw mouth rim which shows that it was fired inverted, and as there is no _shu fu_ mark it may well have been one of the copies of the Palace types which the _T´ao lu_ informs us were made at the private factories. [Illustration: Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Plate 46.--Ting Ware and Yüan Porcelain. Fig.1.--Bottle with carved reliefs of archaic dragons and _ling chih_ funguses. _Fèn ting_ ware, said to be Sung dynasty. Height 8¾ inches. Fig. 2.--Bowl with moulded floral designs in low relief, unglazed rim. Translucent porcelain, probably Yüan dynasty. Diameter 8 inches. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._] It is always difficult to determine the age of plain white wares, but among the archaic specimens of translucent porcelain with creamy white glaze and rough finish at the base which have come from China in recent years under the varying descriptions of Sung, Yüan and early Ming, there are, no doubt, several examples of the Yüan wares of Ching-tê Chên (see Plate 46, Fig. 2). The mention, in the Memoirs of Chiang and the _Ko ku yao lun_, of painted decoration, enamelled ornament, silvering, and gilding, though apparently but crudely used and little appreciated, is nevertheless of great interest from the historical standpoint.