Chinese ceramic history, based on the official records, is silent on the subject of the three last Ming reigns, and we are left to infer that during the death struggles of the old dynasty and the establishment of the Manchu Tartars on the throne work at the Imperial factory was virtually suspended. The few existing specimens which bear the marks of T’ien Ch’i and Ch’ung Chêng (the T’ai Ch’ang mark is apparently unrepresented) are of little merit. A barrel-shaped incense vase with floral scrolls and a large bowl with four-clawed dragons of the former date in the British Museum are painted the one in dull greyish blue, and the other in a bright but rather garish tint of the same colour; both have a coarse body material with blisters and pitting in the glaze, and the painting of the designs is devoid of any distinction. Similarly, a polychrome saucer dish with the same mark and in the same collection, decorated with an engraved dragon design filled in with purple glaze in a green ground, carries on the early tradition of that type of Ming polychrome, but the ware is coarse, the design crudely drawn, and the colours impure.[210] From the same unflattering characteristics another dish in the British Museum, with large patches of the three on-biscuit colours--green, yellow and aubergine--may be recognised as of the T’ien Ch’i make. This is a specimen of the so-called tiger skin ware, of which K’ang Hsi and later examples are known--a ware which, even in the best-finished specimens with underglaze engraved designs, is more curious than beautiful. On the other hand, one of the delicate bowls with biscuit figures in high relief, already described (p. 75), proves that the potters of the T’ien Ch’i period were still capable of skilful work when occasion demanded. A pair of wine cups in the British Museum, with freely drawn designs of geese and rice plants in pale greyish blue under a greyish glaze, are the solitary representatives of the Ch’ung Chêng mark. In the absence of Imperial patronage, and with the inevitable trade depression which followed in the wake of the fierce dynastic struggle, it was fortunate for the Ching-tê Chên potters that a large trade with European countries was developing. The Portuguese and Spanish had already established trading connections with the Chinese, and the other Continental nations--notably the Dutch--were now serious competitors. The Dutch East India Company was an extensive importer of blue and white porcelain, and we have already discussed one type of blue and white which figures frequently in the Dutch pictures of the seventeenth century.