何朝宗何許人也？這是一個一直以來從未間斷過思考的問題。

何朝宗，一位瓷都德化明代舉世聞名的瓷塑大師，其獨樹一幟的精湛技藝和形成的“何”派藝術馳名中外，被譽為“東方藝術”的精品。

然而，關于這位聞名世界的瓷塑大師的生卒年月及個人經歷等在地方文獻中卻鮮有記載。

那么，這個問題是否能在外國作者有關“德化”“”“德化瓷”的著作中得到說明？

近期，外國人眼中的“”欄目將對有關“何朝宗”的研究進行梳理，以期找到其中的線索。

從何而來？萬瓷朝宗。

——唐納利筆下的“何朝宗”（一）

成書于1969年，由英國作家唐納利撰寫的《——福建德化瓷》一書，對何朝宗有以下說明：

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.

“這是同德化緊密相連的一個名字。他是中國和歐洲早期著作者熟知的一位瓷師。不僅因為他塑造了迄今為止最為精美的塑像，……而且數量甚大。僅在西方，至少有200件他的作品，而總數可達1000件?！?

唐納利推斷何朝宗或許為德化窯的“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?

“這個以及刻有他的名字的不同印章，種類幾乎同塑像一樣多，使我們產生了疑問，難道這個名字是窯口的塑像之父，其后的歷代陶工，只要生產高品質瓷器便使用他的名字，他們使用何朝宗名字就如同景德鎮的陶工們一樣，總是在自己的產品上寫上瓷器質量最好時期的年號，如宣德或成化？”

關于何朝宗瓷塑的斷代依據，唐納利有詳細分析：

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.

“帶相同款識的塑像風格一樣，這可使我們斷定它們為同一時代，即使我們無法走得更遠且宣稱它們出自同一個人之手。當我們將眼光放到所有作品時，我們發現，正如我們所預計的那樣，風格變化較大，……”不過，他也指出模具的存在對作品年代判斷的影響：“我們也面臨著瓷師在創作生涯中風格變化的問題。雖然如此，一個相當苦惱的問題是，模具本身可能被保留下來并隨后使用。正如已解釋的那樣，我們通過購買記錄作為斷代的基礎在這里徹底失敗，因為這位陶工作品最早到達歐洲時是1878年，而中國再也沒有這方面的證據?！?

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.

“盡管有些擔心，從總體上說，我準備將帶有何朝宗款的當作真品。畢竟，在他的一生創作中，假設為40年，作為一個陶工，即使沒有采用模具，其產量也是相當大的。我們也看到，中國人是如何喜歡印章的，他們往往不只擁有一個章，而是擁有許多私章?！?

來源：德化陶瓷文化研究院、陶瓷辦

責任編輯：陳美珠