Page 256 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

156 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

that the modern copyist regards the reign of K'ang Hsi as the best
period of manufacture for this style of ware.

The noblest examples of this group, and perhaps the finest
of all Chinese polychromes, are the splendid vases with designs
reserved in grounds of green black, yellow or leaf green. Plates
96, 97 and Frontispiece will serve to illustrate the colours and at
the same time some of the favourite forms ^ of these sumptuous
pieces, the baluster vase, and the square vase with pendulous body,
pyramidal base, and two handles usually of archaic dragon form.
The favourite design for the decoration of these forms is the flower-
ing prunus tree, beside a rockery with a few bright plumaged
birds in the branches, one of the most familiar and at the same
time most beautiful of Chinese patterns (see Plate 96). The flowers

—of the four seasons peony, lotus, chrysanthemum and prunus

form a beautiful decoration for the four sides of another favourite
form, a tall vase of square elevation with sides lightly tapering
downwards, rounded shoulders, and circular neck, slightly flaring
at the mouth. The specimens illustrated are in the British
Museum, but there is a wonderful series of these lordly vases in
the Salting Collection, and in the Pierpont Morgan and Altmann Col-

lections in New York. To-day they are rare, and change hands at

enormous prices. Consequently all manner of imitations abound,
European and Oriental, the modern Chinese work in this style being
often highly successful. But the most insidious copies are the
deliberate frauds in which old K'ang Hsi vases are stripped of a
relatively cheap form of decoration, the glaze and colour being
removed by grinding, and furnished with a cleverly enamelled design
in colours on the biscuit. The actual colours are often excellent,
and as the ware seen at the base is the genuine K'ang Hsi porcelain

even the experienced connoisseur may be deceived at first, though

probably his misgivings will be aroused by something in the draw-
ing which betrays the copyist, and a searching examination of
the surface will reveal some traces of the sinister treatment to
which it has been subjected or the tell-tale marks, such as black
specks or burns, left on the foot rim by the process of refiring.
There is much truth besides in the saying that things " look
their age," and artificial signs of wear imparted by friction and

* Another favourite form is the ovoid beaker (see Plate 101), which is sometimes
called the yen yen vase, apparently from yen, beautiful. But I only have this name
on hearsay, and it is perhaps merely a trader's term.