There is only one specimen in the Bushell manuscript that is attributed by Tzu-ching to the Yuan period--this is a little vase of white ware decorated with dragons faintly engraved in the paste under the glaze. This white ware, generally classed as Ting, is indeed in many of our books on porcelain considered to be especially characteristic of the Mongol dynasty, but I cannot find any definite confirmation of this. The finer pieces of plain white seem to be generally attributed by the Chinese rather to the beginning of the next dynasty. The little white plate in the Dresden Museum, said to have been ‘brought back from the East by a crusader,’ has no claim to such an early date.[39] CHAPTER VI THE PORCELAIN OF CHINA--(_continued_). THE MING DYNASTY (1368-1643). It was in the course of the three centuries during which the Ming dynasty ruled in China that the greatest advance was made in the manufacture of porcelain. When, however, we come to look a little more closely, we find that this long period may be shortened by nearly a hundred years. Before the accession of Yung-lo (1402), and after the death of Wanli (1619), the times were little favourable to the arts of peace, and even in this shorter period of two centuries there were intervals, indeed whole reigns, of which there is little to report. The points of chief importance to remember in connection with this dynasty are--1. That not later than the beginning of the fifteenth century the employment of the oxides of copper and cobalt for decoration under the glaze was coming into general use. To this, or perhaps to an earlier date, we must assign the beginnings of the ware that we in England are wont to consider the most important of all, the great family of ‘blue and white’ porcelain. 2. That probably about the same time, or soon after, the ‘painted glazes,’ as we have called them, were introduced. In this ware the colours required for the decoration--the palette was a very restricted one--were painted directly on the biscuit, the piece having been previously fired; it was then re-fired at a moderate heat. 3. That at a later period, probably about the middle of the sixteenth century, the employment of enamel colours above the glaze was introduced, probably under European influence.