BOOK REVIEWS
EARLY MING WARES OF CHINGTECHEN. A. D. Brankston. 106 pp. 45 plates (1 coloured), 18 text-illus. Re-issue 1970. Vetch and Lee, Hong Kong $60; Lund Humphries, London, £5.
The appearance of a reissue of A. D. Brankston's book Early Ming Wares of Chingtechen will be welcomed by the collector, connoisseur and dealer alike and will fill a long-awaited need to possess this classic in the field of Chinese ceramics. The original edition, published by Mr. Henri Vetch in Peking in 1938 was limited to 650 copies and has been, until now, virtually unobtainable to the layman, despite the fact that it is frequently referred to by writers on Chinese Porcelain and freely quoted from in sales catalogues. The present edition has been faithfully reproduced on the off-set press and Mr. Vetch is to be congratulated for turning out a most pleasing volume which retains much of the charm of the original.
Archibald Brankston was born in Shanghai in 1909. He followed his father's profession as a civil engineer and, after schooling in England, came to Hong Kong to work on the Shing Mun Valley Water Scheme. Being obliged to return to England due to ill health, he was fortunate to be employed in the setting-up of the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London in 1935. This led to his appointment as a travelling student by the Universities China Committee in London and he was thereby enabled to journey into the interior of China and visited the kiln sites around Chingtechen from which he recovered a variety of samples which now form part of the British Museum study collection. He was also fortunate in being acquainted with well-known Chinese collectors of that time, including Mr. Wu Lai-hsi and others. Back in England, he was employed in the Department of Oriental Antiquities of the British Museum for two years until he had to return to the Far East on behalf of the Ministry of Information. He died in Hong Kong in 1941 at the early age of 31.
The book deals mainly with blue and white wares of the 15th Century covering the reigns of Yung Lo, Hsüan-Tê, Ch'êng Hua and Hung Chih and also includes some information on the