Page 362 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

2i6 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

glassy glaze on which the enamels assumed the soft tints of the

original model. This type of porcelain* known as fang ku yiieh

hsiian ("imitation of Ku-yiieh-hsiian "), is greatly prized. Mr. A. E.

Hippisley has described a small group in the catalogue of his collec-

tion from which I have been permitted to illustrate an example

(Plate 125). Mr. Hippisley states that the earlier specimens of the

V glass are marked with the four characters ta chHng nien chih (made
in the great Ch'ing period), the reign name Yung Cheng being omitted

;

the later pieces, of which the brush pot in our illustration is one,
have the Ch'ien Lung mark in four characters. Bushell ^ has figured

a yellow glazed snuff bottle with the actual mark Ku yiieh hsiian

chih (see vol. i. p. 219).

The reigns of Yung Cheng and Ch'ien Lung were prolific in mono-

chromes. Never since the Sung dynasty had these wares been

produced in such quantity, and the tale of the glazes was swollen

to an unprecedented extent by the accumulated traditions of the

past centuries, and by the inventive genius of T'ang Ying. It is

scarcely practicable to attempt to distinguish very closely between

the Yung Cheng monochromes and those of the early years of

Ch'ien Lung. The activities of T'ang-ying extended from 1728-

1749, and we are expressly told that many of the types enumerated

in the Imperial list were his inventions, besides which there was

nothing made by the potters of the past which he could not

reproduce. To enumerate all the colours now used would be

merely to repeat what has been said under the heading of mono-

chrome porcelain in the previous chapters. Moreover, the Imperial

list given on page 223 serves to draw attention to the principal

types, and it is only necessary here to supplement it with a few

comments.

A special feature of the time was the reproduction of the glazes

made in the classical periods of the Sung and Ming dynasties, and

in many cases these copies were based on originals lent to the

factory from the Imperial collections. Thus the Ju, Kuan, Ko,

Lung-chiian, Tung-ch'ing, Chiin and Ting wares, all the specialities

of the Sung dynasty, are included in the list, and though one
type of Kuan glaze is specifically stated to have been laid on a

white porcelain body, many of the others, we read, were pro-

vided with special bodies imitating the copper- and iron-coloured

wares of antiquity. But experience shows that in the majority of

^ Chinese Art, vol. il., fig. 74.