Page 426 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

258 Chinese Pottery and Porcelain

About the middle of the century small bouquets and scattered
floral sprays in the well-known Meissen style of painting made

their appearance, and the gradual invasion of the border patterns

by European motives is apparent. It may be of interest to note

a few of the latter as they occur on dated specimens :

1. Light feathery scrolls, gilt or in colours : first half of Ch'ien

Lung period.

2. Rococo ornaments combined with floral patterns : first half
of Ch'ien Lung period.

3. Large shell-like ornaments and scroll edged frames of lattice
work, loosely strung together : early Ch'ien Lung period.

4. Similar motives with more elaborate framer^vork, enclosing
diapers, and interrupted by four peacocks at regular intervals and

generally black and gold : about 1740 to 1760.
5. Black and brown hexagon diaper, edged with dragon ara-

besques in gold : an early type of border, but lasting as late as

1780.

6. Composite borders with diapers, symbols, flowers, etc., and
sometimes including butterflies, half Chinese and half European :
on specimens ranging from 1765 to 1820.

This last border pattern was adopted at Coalport and in other

English factories to surround the willow pattern.^

In the last decades of the century, such purely European borders

as the swags of flowers used at Bow and Bristol, floral and laurel

wreaths and husk festoons ; the pink scale patterns of Meissen
;

ribbons and dotted lines winding through a floral band, feather

scrolls, etc., of Sevres origin, and afterwards adopted at Worcester,

Bristol, Lowestoft and elsewhere in England ; blue with gilt edges
and gilt stars, as on the Derby borders, which also derive from

Sevres ; and the corn-flower sprigs of the French hard-paste porce-

lains.

A conspicuous feature of the Ch'ien Lung export porcelain in

general is the use of a thin, washy pink in place of the thick carmine
of the early famille rose. This is a colour common to European

porcelain of the period, and it may have been suggested to the

Chinese by specimens of Western wares. We may, perhaps, note

1 The willow pattern is merely an English adaptation of the conventional Chinese
landscape and river scene which occurs frequently on the export blue and white porce-
lain of the eighteenth century. That it represents any particular story is extremely
improbable.