Page 141 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Wan Li (1573-1619) 75

example from the Grandidier collection. The Chinese were in the

habit of daubing these biscuit reliefs (just as they did the unglazed

details of statuettes) with a red pigment which served as a medium

for oil gilding, but as neither of these coatings was fired they

have worn away or been cleaned off in the majority of cases. In

the Rijks Museum, Amsterdam, is a picture ^ by Van Streeck (1632-

1678), which shows one of these covered bowls with the biscuit

reliefs coloured red, and Mr. Perzynski ^ alludes to another in a

still-life by Willem Kalf (1630-1693) in the Kaiser Frederick
Museum, Berlin, with the figures both coloured^ and gilt. An

excellent example of the second kind of decoration is illustrated

by Fig. 2 of Plate 78, one of a set of four bowls in the Hippisley

Collection, with phoenix medallions and other decoration in a fine

grey blue, the spaces filled with perforated designs of the utmost
delicacy, veritable " devil's work," to borrow a Chinese term for

workmanship which shows almost superhuman skill. The small

pierced medallions contain the characters /i/, shou, k'ang, ning * (happi-

ness, longevity, peace, and tranquillity), and under the base are the

Asix characters of the Wan Li mark. line cut in the glaze (before

firing) at the lip and on the base-rim seems to have been designed

to give a firm hold to a metal mount, a use to which it has been

actually put in one case ; and in another the glazing of the mark
under the base has been omitted with the result that it has come

from the kiln black instead of blue. The third kind which com-

bines the reliefs and the pierced ornament is illustrated by Fig. 1

of Plate 78. The reliefs of these medallions are small and very
delicately modelled, and the subjects are various, including human

and animal figures, birds and floral compositions ; the borders
are often traced in liquid clay, which is left in unglazed relief.

x\n example in the British Museum has an interior lining washed

with blue to serve as a backing for the pierced work, and it is

painted inside with dragon designs in Wan Li grey blue. It bears

a mark which occurs on other late Ming porcelains, yil Vang chia

cJii (beautiful vessel for the Jade Hall).^ Examples of this same

1 Cat, No. 112d.
* Burlington Magazine, December, 1910, p. 169.
* The figures sometimes stand out against a background coloured with washes of
green, yellow and aubergine glaze. See Plate 82, Fig. 2.
« See p. 43.
*See vol. i., p. 218.