Red Marks on Pottery: Iron-Red Seals and Reign Marks

A red mark on pottery or porcelain is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, a Chinese reign mark written in iron-red enamel over the glaze. It is one of several accepted ways the same mark could be applied: reign and seal marks on Chinese porcelain are usually hand-written in underglaze cobalt blue or over the surface of the glaze in iron-red pigment, and can also appear in pale blue or black enamel, in gilt, or incised or impressed into the body.

So the colour is a technique, not a category. Red does not mean a different kind of mark from blue; it means the mark was painted on after the glaze firing, in an enamel that had to be fired again at a lower temperature. Practically, that makes red marks more vulnerable to wear than underglaze blue ones, which is why so many are partly rubbed.

The mark itself normally sits in the centre of the base of the object, although it can also be found on exterior surfaces or at the mouth of a vessel.

A six-character reign mark is built to a fixed formula, and once you know the formula the characters sort themselves out even if you do not read Chinese.

The first two characters name the dynasty: Da Ming for the Great Ming, 1368 to 1644, or Da Qing for the Great Qing, 1644 to 1911. The middle two name the emperor. The last two, nian zhi, mean made for.

They are most commonly written in vertical columns, read from top to bottom and from right to left, although they are sometimes arranged horizontally and read right to left. A four-character version drops the dynasty characters and gives the emperor and nian zhi only.

The script matters as well as the words. Standard kaishu script is used in earlier marks, while zhuanshu, the angular seal form, became popular during the Yongzheng period of 1723 to 1735 and remained favoured throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in the Qianlong era. A seal-script mark therefore suggests a later date than a kaishu one, other things being equal.

This is the part that surprises people. A reign mark on Chinese porcelain frequently does not date the piece.

Chinese potters applied the mark of an earlier, admired emperor to newer work as a matter of respect and reverence for those periods. The practice is called an apocryphal or commemorative mark, and it was not intended to deceive. The Xuande period of 1426 to 1435 and the Chenghua period of 1465 to 1487 were copied particularly often, because the imperial porcelain of those reigns was so highly valued. Apocryphal marks of this kind are common enough that a reign mark alone should never be treated as proof of a piece's actual production date.

So the correct reading of a Ming reign mark on a piece you own is: this mark refers to the Ming, and the piece was made then or, far more likely, later. The object dates the object. Body, glaze, potting, foot finish, decoration technique and wear are the evidence, and the mark is a supporting detail.

For the same lesson applied to metal, where marks imitating British hallmarks were an open trade convention rather than fraud, see Chinese silver marks.

Not every red mark is Chinese, and a quick sort avoids a long detour.

• European printed marks in red. Many factories printed backstamps in red or puce overglaze. If the mark contains Latin letters, a crown, a company name or the word ENGLAND, it belongs in the European dating system instead, where ENGLAND means 1891 or later and MADE IN ENGLAND generally 1914 on.
• Japanese red marks. Hand-painted red characters, often with a red rectangular or gourd-shaped outline, appear on Japanese export wares. Reading the characters is the only reliable way to separate them from Chinese marks.
• Decorator and workshop marks. A small red number, initial or symbol beside a larger mark identifies the painter or the decorating studio rather than the factory.
• Retailer marks. Shops applied their own red or gilt marks on top of factory marks, which is why some bases carry two.

When a base has more than one mark, the one under the glaze is the maker's and the ones over it were added later, usually by a decorator or a retailer.

Overglaze red is thin and sits on a reflective surface, which is the hardest combination to photograph on a pottery base.

Use soft, diffused light from a wide source rather than a point light or flash, and tilt the piece until the glaze reflection moves off the characters. Photograph the whole base, not just the mark, then take a second frame of the whole piece.

Do not attempt to clean or brighten a rubbed red mark. Overglaze enamel comes away under abrasion and a wiped mark loses evidence permanently. Photograph it and the app identifies it, and use the characters and script style in your own photograph to check what the mark claims before deciding what the object is.

Before looking anything up, answer these questions from the base itself.

• Is it painted over the glaze? Run a fingernail gently across it; overglaze red sits slightly proud and is often rubbed. Underglaze marks are smooth under the glaze.
• Characters or letters? Chinese or Japanese characters go to the reign-mark reading above; Latin letters, a crown or a company name go to the European system in pottery marks identification.
• How many characters? Six usually means dynasty, emperor and nian zhi; four drops the dynasty.
• Is there a square seal outline? Seal-script marks inside a square are read differently from regular script.
• Does the mark fit the piece? A crisp, bright mark on a heavy, worn body, or the reverse, is a warning sign.
• Is there a country name? CHINA, MADE IN CHINA or MADE IN JAPAN printed with the characters points to export ware of the late 19th century or later.

A mark on its own is not what sells; a genuine period piece that matches its mark is. The record makes the point. On 8 April 2014 Sotheby's Hong Kong sold the Meiyintang Chenghua doucai chicken cup, mark and period of Chenghua (1465 to 1487), for HK$281.24 million, about US$36.05 million, the highest auction price for Chinese porcelain at that time. Its six-character mark is written in underglaze blue, not red.

The same design was reproduced through the Qing dynasty and is still copied today with the mark included, and those copies are worth a small fraction of the original. So a famous reign mark raises the question of value; only the body, glaze, painting and foot of the piece answer it.

In European ceramics, value similarly follows sought-after factories and designers rather than the colour of the mark; see the maker pages under makers' marks for how to date them.

Searches for red pottery sometimes mean ancient Greek red-figure vases, which have nothing to do with marks on a base. Red-figure painting began in Athens around 530 BC and is usually credited to the Andokides Painter: the background was painted in a glossy slip that fired black, and the figures were left in the red-orange colour of the clay. It reversed the earlier black-figure technique, which painted dark figures on a red ground.

The best-known example is probably the Euphronios krater, painted by Euphronios and made by the potter Euxitheos around 515 BC. The Metropolitan Museum of Art bought it for US$1.2 million on 10 November 1972; it went back to Italy in January 2008 and is now in the National Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri.

You do not need to buy a mark book to start. Hooper and Phillips' *Manual of Marks on Pottery and Porcelain*, first published in 1876 and revised in 1894, is free to read online as a scan. It is arranged the way a beginner needs: marks are grouped under plain descriptive heads such as anchor, crown and sword, and the oriental section is ordered by the number of characters in the mark. For Chinese reign marks specifically, auction-house guides such as Christie's show the characters for each emperor side by side.