Page 381 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Ch'ien Lung (1736-1795) 231

rose colours would be perfectly feasible ; but I do not know of
any example, whereas there is no lack of choice porcelains answering

to the alternative description.

The two remaining types, liei ti pat hua (white decoration in a
black ground) and hei ti miao chin (black ground gilt), apparently
leave the nature of the black undefined, but as the expressions
appear verbatim in the note attached to No. 52 of Hsieh Min's
list, which is " reproductions of wu chin glaze," we must regard
the black in this case, too, as of the ivu chin type. The black
ground with gilding can hardly refer to anything but the well-
known mirror black glaze with gilt designs ; and the white designs
in black ground is equally clearly identified with a somewhat rarer

type of porcelain in which the pattern is reserved in white in a
ground of black enamel of the type of No. 3. There are two snuff

bottles in the British Museum respectively decorated with " rat

and vine," and figure subjects white with slight black shading
and reserved in a sticky black enamel ground. Both these are of
the Tao Kuang period, but there are earlier and larger examples
elsewhere with a black ground of finer quality. Such a decoration
is scarcely possible with anything but an enamel black, and though
there is some inconsistency in the grouping of an enamel and a
glaze together in Hsieh Min's list, they were apparently both re-
garded as " reproductions " of the old mirror black ivu chin.

Out of the remaining innovations ascribed to T'ang's directorate,
the /a ch'ing (cloisonne or enamel blue) and the fa lang hua fa (paint-
ing in the style of the enamels on copper) have already been described
in connection with Hsieh Min's list. The latter expression occurs
verbatim in the note attached in the Annals of Fou-liang ^ to No. 49
of the list, which is " porcelain with foreign colouring," and it
clearly refers to the free painting on the Canton enamels for reasons
already given.- It is true that fa lang (like fo lang, fii lang, and
fa Ian, all phrases suggestive of foreign and Western origin) is
commonly used in reference to cloisonne enamel, but the idea of
copying on porcelain " landscapes, figure subjects, flowering plants,
and birds " from cloisonne enamels is preposterous to anyone who
is familiar with the cramped and restricted nature of work bounded

1 See p. 225. " In the new copies of the Western style of painting in enamels
(hsi gang fa lang hua fa), the landscapes and figure scenes, the flowering plants and
birds are without exception of supernatural beauty."

2 See p. 209.