With regard to the actual designs, we are told that in the Ch’êng Hua period they were drawn by the best artists at the Court, and from another passage[236] it is clear that the practice of sending the patterns from the palace continued in later reigns as well. Such designs would no doubt accumulate, and probably they were collected together from time to time and issued in the form of pattern books.[237] Another method in which the painters of Ming blue and white were served with patterns is related in the _T’ao shuo_[238]:--“For painting in blue, the artists were collected each day at dawn and at noon, and the colour for painting was distributed among them. Two men of good character were first selected, the larger pieces of porcelain being given to one, the smaller pieces to the other; and when they had finished their painting, the amount of the material used was calculated before the things were taken to the furnace to be baked. If the results were satisfactory, then the pieces were given as models to the other painters, and in the rest of the pieces painted, the quantity of the colour used and the depth of the tint was required to be in exact accordance with these models.” There was little scope for originality or individual effort under this system, where everything, even to the amount of material used, was strictly prescribed. To translate their model with feeling and accuracy was the best that could be expected from the rank and file. But with the manual skill and patient industry for which the Chinese are proverbial, and the good taste which prevailed in the direction of the work, it was a system admirably suited to the task, and it unquestionably led to excellent results. As to the systems in use in the private factories we have no information, but we may fairly assume that their processes were much the same; and that, not having the benefit of the designs sent from Court, they were more dependent upon the pattern books and stock designs more or less remotely connected with the work of famous painters. CHAPTER VII MISCELLANEOUS PORCELAIN FACTORIES