Page 355 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Yung Cheng Period (1723-1735) 209

the positive colours. Most of the opaque colours have considerable

body, and stand out on the porcelain like a rich incrustation, and

they are laid on not in broad washes, but with careful brush strokes

and miniature-like touches.
The famille rose colours are known to the Chinese as juan ts'ai

(" soft colours," as opposed to the ying is'ai, or hard colours of the

famille verte), fen ts'ai (pale colours), or yang is'ai (foreign colours).
Their foreign origin is generally admitted, and T'ang Ying in the

seventeenth of his descriptions of the processes of manufacture
alludes to them under the heading, " Decorating the round ware and

vases with foreign colouring." ^ Painting the white porcelain in
polychrome {wu is'ai) after the manner of the Europeans {hsi yang),
he tells us, is called foreign colouring, and he adds that the colours
employed are the same as those used for enamels on metal {fo lang).
Taking this statement with the note on " foreign coloured wares "

in the Imperial list,^ where reference is made to painting on enamels
{fa lang) " landscapes and figure scenes, flowering plants and birds,"
it is evident that /a lang is used here not in the usual sense of cloisonne
enamel, but for the painted enamels on copper which we distinguish
as Canton enamels. These, we are told elsewhere,^ were first made
in the kingdom of Ku-li, wliich is washed by the Western sea. Ku-li

is identified as CaHcut, but it does not necessarily follow that the
Chinese associated the origin of the painted enamels with India.
The expression was probably used quite vaguely in reference to

European goods which came by way of India, and does not really

conflict with the other phrase, hsi yang (Western foreigners), which
is always rendered " Europeans."

There is quite a number of references to the foreign or European

colours in the Imperial Hst,^ e.g. " porcelain in yellow after the
European style," which Bushell considers to be the lemon yellow
which originated in this reign ; " porcelain in purple brown {tzu)
after the European style " ; " European red-coloured wares,"
i.e. rose pink ; " European green-coloured wares," which Bushell

Tao1 shiio, bk. i., fol. 15 verso.
- See p. 225, No. 49. Fo-lang, fa-lang, fu-lang, and fa-laii are used indiscriminately

by the Chinese in the sense of enamels on metal.
» In the T'ao lu, under the heading Yang tz'u. It is a curious paradox that the

Chinese called famille rose porcelain yang ts'ai (foreign colours) and the Canton enamels
yang tz'u (foreign porcelain). See Burlington Magazine, December, 1912, " Note on

Canton Enamels."

* See pp. 224-226, Nos. 29, 37, 38, 49, 51, 53, and 54.

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