Page 223 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Blue and White 135

with sprays and petals of the flowering prunus fallen on the ice,
which was already cracked and about to dissolve. The design is
symbolic of the passing of winter and the coming of spring ; and
the vibrating depths of the pure sapphire blue broken by a net-
work of lines simulating ice cracks form a lovely setting for the
graceful prunus sprays reserved in the pure curd-like white of the

ware.

The prunus pattern has been applied to every conceivable form,
whether to cover the whole surface or to serve as secondary orna-
ment in the border of a design or on the rim of a plate, and the
prunus jar appears in all qualities of blue and on porcelain good
and bad, old and new. The graceful sprays have become stereotyped
and the whole design vulgarised in many instances ; and in some
cases the blossoms are distributed symmetrically on a marbled
blue ground as a mere pattern. But nothing can stale the beauty
of the choice K'ang Hsi originals, on which the finest materials and
the purest, deepest blue were lavished. The amateur should find
no difficulty in distinguishing these from their decadent descend-
ants. The freshness of the drawing, the pure quality of the blue,
and the excellence of body, glaze, and potting are unmistakable.
The old examples have the low rim round the mouth unglazed
where the rounded cap-shaped cover fitted, and the design on the
shoulders is finished off with a narrow border of dentate pattern.
The original covers are extremely rare, and in most cases have
been replaced with later substitutes in porcelain or carved wood.

There are, besides, a number of types specially prevalent among
the export porcelains, some purely Chinese in origin, others showing
European influence. Take, for example, the well-known saucer
dish with mounted figures of a man and a woman hunting a hare

— —a subject usually known as the " love chase " a free and spirited

design, rather sketchily painted in pale silvery blue. The porcelain
itself is scarcely less characteristic, a thin, crisp ware, often moulded
on the sides with petal-shaped compartments, and in many ways
recalling the earlier type described on p. 70. It is, however, dis-
tinguished from the latter class by slight differences in tone and
finish which can only be learnt by comparison of actual specimens.
It is, moreover, almost always marked with a nien hao in six char-
acters, whereas marks on the other type are virtually unknown.
The nie7i hao is usually that of Ch'eng Hua, but an occasional
example with the K'ang Hsi mark gives the true date of the ware.