Page 361 - 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) 215

exemplified. Another effect sometimes mistaken for black paint-
ing is produced by silvered designs which become rapidly dis-
coloured ; but it is generally possible to see a slight metallic sheen
even on the blackened silver if the porcelain is held obliquely to
the light.

Another refined and unobtrusive decoration was effected by
pencilling in pale iron red supplemented with gilding. There is
a large series of this red and gold porcelain in the Dresden collection,
and it seems to belong to the late K'ang Hsi or the Yung Cheng
period. Another telling combination, including black, red and
gold, dates from this time. The black and gold variety is well
illustrated by an interesting plate in the British Museum which
represents European figures in early eighteenth-century costume
in a Chinese interior (Plate 131, Fig. 1). The Imperial list ^
alludes to the use of silver and gold both to cover the entire
surface like a monochrome {7710 yin and mo chin), and in painted
designs {miao yin and miao cliin)r Three of these decorations are
said to have been in Japanese style, but the precise significance
of this is not clear. Gilding was freely used in combination with
red and blue, and especially over the blue, on Arita porcelain, but
the application of it does not seem to differ from the ordinary
Chinese gilding. The one feature common to the Chinese and
Japanese gilding is its lightness and restraint as compared with
the heavy gilding of European porcelains.

Plate 125 illustrates a peculiar ware which belongs in part to the

reign of Yung Cheng and in part to that of Ch'ien Lung. It attempts
to reproduce the soft colouring on the enamelled glass made by Hu,^
whose studio-nam.e was Ku-yiieh-hsiian ("ancient moon pavilion").

A small brush holder * of this glass is shown on Fig. 125, an opaque

white material, not unlike our old Bristol glass, delicately painted
in famille rose colours with groups of the Seven Worthies of

the Bamboo Grove. It is said that ^ the Emperor admired the

soft colouring on this ware, and expressed a vnsh. to see the
same effect produced in porcelain. T'ang Ying thereupon set out
to solve the problem by making a highly vitreous body with

1 Nos. 39 and 55-57.

* Miao is used in the sense of to " draw " a picture or design.

^ Bushell, 0. C. A., p. 400, explains how the studio name was formed by the common

Hu ^device of splitting up ^into its component parts ku -fi" and yiieh

* From the Hippisley collection, Catalogue, p. 408.

* Catalogue of Hippisley Collection, p. 347.