Page 281 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

K'ang Hsi Polychrome Porcelains 167

—display the same seal apparently i wan shih chit (myriad rocks

retreat), the studio name not, I think, of the porcelain painter but

of the artist whose picture was copied on the porcelain. There are

numerous examples of similar seals in the field of the design, and

we shall return to the subject later in a place where important
issues turn on the solution of the problem which it raises.-

The types of famiUe verte porcelain are extremely numerous,

almost as varied as those of the blue and white (p. 136). Like the
latter they include much that was obviously made for European con-

sumption, and most of the groups which were singled out from the
mass of blue and white for special description can be paralleled in
the famille verte. The thin, crisp, moulded ware with petal-shaped

panels and lobed borders, the group with the " G " mark, and
many other types are found with the same peculiarities of paste

and glaze, and even the same design painted in on-glaze enamels.

As in the case of the blue and white, the quality of this export

ware varies widely, and the individual specimens will be judged

by the drawing of the designs and the purity and fire of the

enamels.

A few of the more striking types are illustrated on Plates 103 and

104. Perhaps the most sumptuous effects of this colour scheme are

displayed in the vases decorated with panel designs surrounded

Aby rich diapers borrowed from silk brocades. favourite brocade

pattern consists of single blossoms or floral sprays woven into a

ground of transparent green covering a powder of small brown
dots. This dotted green ground is commonly known as " frog's

spawn," and another diaper of small circles under a similar green
enamel is easily recognised under the name of " fish roe," But

the variety of these ground patterns is great, and in spite of their

prosaic nomenclature they render in a singularly effective manner

the soft splendour of the Chinese brocades.

In dating the famiUe verte porcelains the collector will find his

study of the blue and white of great assistance. There is, for instance,

—the well-known type of export ware sets of vases with complex

1 These seals iU'e usually difficult to decipher, and the one in question might be read
shui shih chil (water and rock dwelling). This would be a matter of small importance
did not the signature read by Bushell as wan shih cha occur in the Pierpont Morgan
Collection. Other instances in the same collection are chu chu (bamboo retreat), shih
chii (rock retreat), and cha shih chu (red rock retreat). The signature chu chu also occurs

on a dish in the Dresden collection.

* See p. 21