外国人眼中的“中国白”——从何而来？万瓷朝宗。

何朝宗何许人也？这是一个一直以来从未间断过思考的问题。

何朝宗，一位瓷都德化明代举世闻名的瓷塑大师，其独树一帜的精湛技艺和形成的“何”派艺术驰名中外，被誉为“东方艺术”的精品。

然而，关于这位闻名世界的瓷塑大师的生卒年月及个人经历等在地方文献中却鲜有记载。

那么，这个问题是否能在外国作者有关“德化”“中国白”“德化瓷”的著作中得到说明？

近期，外国人眼中的“中国白”栏目将对有关“何朝宗”的研究进行梳理，以期找到其中的线索。

从何而来？万瓷朝宗。

——唐纳利笔下的“何朝宗”（一）

成书于1969年，由英国作家唐纳利撰写的《中国白——福建德化瓷》一书，对何朝宗有以下说明：

This is the name to conjure with in the context of Tehua.He is the one potter commonly known to earlier writers, both Chinese and European. Not only are his figures the finest ever produced,——but they are also numerous. There must be all of 200 of his products in the Western World alone, and the number could reach 1000.

“这是同德化紧密相连的一个名字。他是中国和欧洲早期著作者熟知的一位瓷师。不仅因为他塑造了迄今为止最为精美的塑像，……而且数量甚大。仅在西方，至少有200件他的作品，而总数可达1000件。”

唐纳利推断何朝宗或许为德化窑的“瓷塑之父”：

This and the fact that the different seals imprinting this name are almost as numerous as the pieces themselves leads us to enquire, might not name be that of some sort of father-figure of the kiln, used by successive generations of potters whenever they achieved an outstanding production,which they proceeded to mark with the name Ho Ch'ao-tsung in much the same way as the potters of Chingtechen were wont to mark their wares with the nien hao of one of the classical reigns during which porcelain was thought to be at its best, such as Hsiian-te or Ch'eng-hua?

“这个以及刻有他的名字的不同印章，种类几乎同塑像一样多，使我们产生了疑问，难道这个名字是窑口的塑像之父，其后的历代陶工，只要生产高品质瓷器便使用他的名字，他们使用何朝宗名字就如同景德镇的陶工们一样，总是在自己的产品上写上瓷器质量最好时期的年号，如宣德或成化？”

关于何朝宗瓷塑的断代依据，唐纳利有详细分析：

If this were the case, then the only matter on which we could be certain(assuming that the seal was not preserved with the moulds for subsequent use)is that pieces bearing the same seal are contemporary.The pieces with the same mark possess a similarity of style which would lead us to judge them contemporary,even if we could not go further and assert that they were by the same hand. When we extend our scrutiny to the whole cure we find,as we might expect,greater differences of style,but not such as to reject common authorship on these grounds.Rather are we faced with changes of style over the working years of a potter's life. It is,none the less,a rather worrying thought that the moulds themselves may have been preserved and used subsequently for,as has been explained, our touch stone of dating by acquisition completely fails us here,as the earliest figure by this potter to be recorded in the Western world is 1878,while no evidence on this score is forthcoming from China at all. 

“带相同款识的塑像风格一样，这可使我们断定它们为同一时代，即使我们无法走得更远且宣称它们出自同一个人之手。当我们将眼光放到所有作品时，我们发现，正如我们所预计的那样，风格变化较大，……”不过，他也指出模具的存在对作品年代判断的影响：“我们也面临着瓷师在创作生涯中风格变化的问题。虽然如此，一个相当苦恼的问题是，模具本身可能被保留下来并随后使用。正如已解释的那样，我们通过购买记录作为断代的基础在这里彻底失败，因为这位陶工作品最早到达欧洲时是1878年，而中国再也没有这方面的证据。”

On the whole I am prepared, though with some misgiving, to accept the marks of Ho Chao-tsung at their face value. After all, in a lifetime at his craft-say,40 years- a potter’s output, even without the aid of moulds, would be very large.

“尽管有些担心，从总体上说，我准备将带有何朝宗款的当作真品。毕竟，在他的一生创作中，假设为40年，作为一个陶工，即使没有采用模具，其产量也是相当大的。我们也看到，中国人是如何喜欢印章的，他们往往不只拥有一个章，而是拥有许多私章。”