Page 437 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Nineteenth Century Porcelains 265

A specimen with this mark in the Hippisley Collection ^ is inscribed

with a poem by the Emperor Tao Kuang, definitely fixing the date
of this hall mark, which is found on choice porcelains made for
Imperial use. It occurs on a vase of fine workmanship in the British
Museum, decorated with polychrome five-clawed dragons in a
lavender enamel ground, of which the base and interior are coated
with blue green enamel ; and we have already ^ commented on
an interesting dish with archaic designs in Ming red and green,
which is explained in the mark as an " imitation of the antique
made for the Shen-te Hall."

It is worthy of note that most of the porcelain with hall and
studio marks in red belong to the nineteenth century, chiefly to
the Tao Kuang period. Several of these marks are figured and

explained on p. 220 (vol. i.), but it may be useful if we describe here

a few of the specimens on which they occur. The hall mark, Ch'eng te

Vang, appears on a shallow bowl in the Franks Collection painted

inside with a coiled dragon in green and a border of bats in red,
while outside is a landscape carefully painted in mixed colours in

a style similar to Plate 125, Fig. 3. The latter has the Imperial hall
mark, HsiX hua fang, with addition of the word tseng (for presenta-
tion), and it has besides an inscription proclaiming that it is the
"cup of him who departed as General and returned as Grand Secretary "

{ch*u chiang ju hsiang chih pei). It is painted with a scene in the

Apalace grounds with the Emperor receiving a military officer.^

pretty bowl in the Franks Collection with rockery, flowering plants,
fungus, etc., in colours has the palace mark, ssu pu Vang; and there
are two saucer dishes with Buddhist decoration of palmettes in
cruciform arrangement, and a border of Sanskrit characters painted
in underglaze blue with washes of transparent enamels marked
respectively Ts'ai jun Vang, and Ts'ai hua fang (hall of brilliant
colours and hall of brilliant decoration), which are probably

synonymous.

A distinctive group of porcelain, which seems to belong to the

Tao Kuang period, consists of small boxes and of vases with
landscapes and similar elaborate ornament deeply carved in the
manner of red lacquer. The surface is usually covered with an
opaque green or yellow monochrome enamel, but occasionally it is

left in white biscuit. These pieces have almost always a maker's

mark, such as Wang Ping-jung, Wang Tso-t'ing (see vol. i., p. 223),

» Catalogue, No. 367. « vol. i., p. 220. » Hippisley Collection, Catalogue, No. 169.

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