Chinese Marks on Decorated Porcelain Before the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) none of the underglaze blue or decorated porcelain from Jingdezhen was marked. Only during the Yongle reign (1403-1424), the reign of the third Ming emperor, white and blue porcelain made at the imperial kiln in Jingdezhen was marked for the first time. The mark used was a reign mark having the meaning of "Made in the Yongle years". However, only limited numbers of porcelain was marked that way.
Today only 3.5 cups (three whole and one broken) made of blue and white porcelain are known to have this reign mark. They are in a museum, in Peking. Archaelogical excavations in Jingdezhen, in the strata of the Yongle reign, did not provide any further prove of Yongle marks among the numerous shards unearthed.
Also used in the Yongle reign were zodiac year marks, pictorial marks, auspicious mark, etc., but probably mainly by private kilns.
All these marks were usually written in underglaze blue on white porcelain, however, only few of these marked items or shards were found from the Yongle period.
The Ming dynasty reigns of Yongle, Xuande, Hongzhi, Wanli had marks with Zhuanti style characters, the others were mostly written in Kaiti style.
For Chinese speakers, Chinese marks of the Ming dynasty are characterized as follows: 永樂款少, 宣德款多, 成化款厚, 弘治款秀, 正德款恭, 嘉靖款雜 The above summarizes the type of the marks found in the Ming dynasty.
***************************
No Chinese marks on blue and white prcelain are known from the Yuan dynasty (1206-1367). That is, up to now none of the pieces bearing the Zhizheng mark in underglaze blue was authenticated as genuine. Researchers in China seem to think that there are NO genuine marked Yuan blue and white porcelain items in existence. Whatever the current status of the controversy with Yuan marks is, we have to assume that no pieces with the Yuan dynasty mark "Zhizheng ...", circulating or being on offer on the market are authentic.
Conclusion: From the above it should be fairly safe to further conclude that both, (1) the absence of authentic blue and white Yuan dynasty porcelain, or (2) the scarcity of marked porcelain during the early Ming dynasty's Yongle reign, sre the reason that it is highly improbable for any of these two types of porcelain to appear in the antique market. Anything that does is suspect for being a copy of fake made either later in the Ming dynasty or a modern fake. With Yongle reign marks it is actually known that such marks were used later in the Ming dynasty - but they are not period items.
