Page 409 - 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) 247

dates, but the majority of marked examples are Ch'ien Lung or
later. Out of fourteen pieces in the Franks Collection five have
the Ch'ien Lung mark, two have palace marks of the Tao Kuang
period,^ and one has a long inscription stating that it was made

by Wang Sheng-Kao in the fourth month of 1798.^ The rest are

unmarked. The manufacture continues to the present day, and
the same process has been freely used in Japan, where it is called

hotaru-de, or firefly decoration. In this type of ornament the
Chinese were long forestalled by the potters of Western Asia, for

the rice-grain transparencies were used with exquisite effect in
Persia and Syria in the twelfth century if not considerably earlier.

It remains to mention a species of decoration which is not strictly

ceramic. It consists of coating the porcelain biscuit with black

lacquer in which are inlaid designs in mother-of-pearl, the lac
burgaute of the French (Plate 128, Fig. 3). This porcelain is
known by the French name of porcelaine laquee burgautee, and
it seems to have been originally a product of the Ch'ien Lung
period ; at any rate, I can find no evidence of its existence before

the eighteenth century.

In the Ch'ien Lung period Chinese porcelain reaches the high-
water mark of technical perfection. The mastery of the material
is complete. But for all that the art is already in its decline. By
the middle of the reign it is already overripe, and towards the
end it shows sure signs of decay. At its best the decoration is
more ingenious than original, and more pretty than artistic. At
its worst it is cloying and tiresome. The ware itself is perfectly
refined and pure, but colder than the K'ang Hsi porcelain. The
famille rose painting is unequalled at its best for daintiness and
finish, but the broken tints and miniature touches cannot compare
in decorative value with the stronger and broader effects of the
Ming and K'ang Hsi brushwork. The potting is almost perfect,
but the forms are wanting in spontaneity ; and the endless imita-
tion of bronze shapes becomes wearisome, partly because the

intricate forms of cast metal are not naturally suited to the ceramic
material, and partly because the elaborate finish of the Ch'ien

Lung wares makes the imitation of the antique unconvincing. In
detail the wares are marvels of neatness and finish, but the general
impression is of an artificial elegance from which the eye gladly

1 Shtn le Cang and cUing wei tang. See vol. i., p. 220.
* See Burton and Hobson, Marks on Pottery and Porcelain, p. 151.