Page 222 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

134 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

flowers of the Four Seasons, the Eight Taoist Immortals, the

Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, etc. Another favourite panel

design is a group of vases, furniture, and symbolical objects from

the comprehensive series known as the Hundred Antiques. ^ Some-

times the whole surface of a vase is divided into rows of petal-

shaped compartments filled with floral designs, figure subjects,

birds and flowers or landscapes. Plate 91, Fig. 3, from a set of

five, is one of the large vases in the Dresden collection which,

tradition says, were obtained by Augustus the Strong from the

King of Prussia in exchange for a regiment of dragoons. It is

decorated with panels illustrating the stories of the Twenty-four

Paragons of Filial Piety.

Some of the purely floral patterns strike perhaps a more distinc-
tive note. The " aster pattern," for instance, is a design of stiff,

radiating, aster-like flowers usually in a dark tone of blue and

displayed on saucer dishes or deep covered bowls. Some of the

specimens of this class appear to be a little earlier than K'ang

Hsi. The so-called " tiger-lily " pattern illustrated by Fig. 2 of

Plate 89 is usually associated with deep cylindrical covered bowls

Aof fine material and painted in the choicest blue. beaker

(Plate 91, Fig. 2) shows a characteristic treatment of the mag-

nolia, parts of the blossoms being lightly sculptured in relief and

the white petals set off by a foil of blue clouding. It evidently

belongs to a set of five (three covered jars and two beakers) made

as a garniture de cheminee for the European market.

The squat-bodied bottle (Plate 92, Fig. 1) illustrates a familiar

treatment of the lotus design, with a large blossom filling the front

of the body.

But perhaps the noblest of all Chinese blue and white patterns

is the prunus design (often miscalled hawthorn) illustrated by

Plate 90, a covered vase once in the Orrock Collection and now

in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The form is that of the well-

known ginger jar, but these lovely specimens were intended for

no banal uses. They were filled with fragrant tea or some other

suitable gift, and sent, like the round cake boxes, by the Chinese

to their friends at the New Year, but it Avas not intended that the

jars or boxes should be kept by the recipients of the compliment.

The New Year falls in China from three to seven weeks later

than in our calendar, and it was seasonable to decorate these jars

^ For further notes on design, see chap. xvii.