Page 282 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

i68 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

moulding, and dishes and plates, etc., with petal-shaped lobes on
the sides or borders. The central design of the decoration com-
monly consists of chH lin and phoenix, sea monsters {hai shou),
storks or ducks beside a flowering tree or some such familiar pattern ;
and the surrounding petal-shaped panels are filled each with a growing
flower, or a vignette of bird and plant, plant and insect, or even a
small landscape. These bright but often perfunctorily painted
wares are paralleled in the early K'ang Hsi blue and white. They
are among the first Chinese polychrome porcelains to be copied by
the European potters. See Plate 107.

In the purely native wares the early Ch'ing famille verte is dis-
tinguished by strong and rather emphatic colouring, the energy of
the drawing and the breadth of design which recall the late Ming
polychromes. The zenith of this style of decoration was reached
about 1700, say between 1682 and 1710. This is the period of the
magnificent vases with panel designs in brocaded grounds, or with
crowded figure subjects. Court scenes, and the like, filling large areas

of the surface, such vases as may be seen in the splendid series of

the Salting Collection or in the Grandidier Collection in the Louvre.

They are probably children of the great renaissance which began
under the auspices of Ts'ang Ying-hsiian. Dated examples are
extremely rare, and consequently the square vase on Plate 104
assumes unusual importance on account of the cyclical date which
occurs in the long inscription, " the 29th day of the 9th moon of
the kuei mo year," which we can hardly doubt is 1703. Incidentally
another side of this vase illustrates the celebrated scene of the wine
cups started from the " orchid arbour to float down the nine-bend

river." ^

Another example with a cyclical date (the year hsin mao, and
no doubt 1711) is a globular water bottle " of the highest quality
and technique, decorated with transparent luminous enamels of
great beauty and delicacy," in the Pierpont IMorgan Collection.^
But in this case the date is attached to a verse in the field of the

decoration, and it may belong to the design rather than to the

porcelain.

The lateness of this latter date and the use of the word " delicacy "

in the description of the piece lead us naturally to that peculiarly

refined type of late famille verte in which the ware is of eggshell
thinness, the painting extremely dainty and delicate, and the

1 See p. 64. * Cat., vol. i., p. 156.