Page 447 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

Porcelain Shapes in the Ch'ing Dynasty 275

and gourd forms, and the vase shaped Hke a double fish erect on its
tail or a single fish rising from waves.

To quote a few of the types named in the Tao shuo * :—" For

holding flowers there are vases from two or three inches to five or
six feet high, round like a hu, round and swelling below like a gall-
bladder {tan), round and with spreading mouth and contracted
below like a tsiin, with flat sides and full angles like a kn, upright
like bamboo joints, square hke a corn measure {tou), with contracted
mouth and flattened sides, with square and round flutings, and
cut in halves with flat backs for hanging on walls."

For pot-pourri and for fragrant flowers to perfume the rooms
various covered jars were provided, hanging vases with reticulated

sides (Plate 114), and boxes with perforated covers. For growing

plants there were deep flower pots and shallow bulb bowls, and
the large and small fish bowls were used for growing water-lilies

as well as for keeping gold-fish ; and shallow bowls were apparently

used as arenas for fighting crickets. ^ As for the vessels in which the

crickets were kept, various suggestions have been made in reference
to the " cricket pots " mentioned in Chinese books, and the name

is sometimes given to reticulated vases and boxes ; but we are
told that the cricket prefers a damp dwelling, and that their pots
were consequently made as a rule of absorbent earthenware. There

is a snuff bottle decorated with crickets in the British Museum, and

one is represented perched on an overturned pot from which he has

apparently escaped, the lid having fallen off. This pot is of ordinary

ovoid jar form apparently ornamented with incised fret pattern.
The apparatus of the library table is peculiarly Chinese ; and

as calligraphy and painting were regarded as among the highest
accomplishments, so the potter lavished on the implements of the
writer his most ingenious fancies and his most beautiful workman-

ship. There were porcelain handles for the pencil brush called

pi Jiuan ; a brush rest (pi ko) of many fanciful forms (see Fig. 3

of Plate 60) of which a miniature range of hills was the com-
monest ; a bed {pi ch'uang) for it to lie down on, and a cylindrical
jar {pi t'vMg) for it to stand up in ; vessels called hsi to wash it in,
usually of shallow bowl form or shaped like crinkled lotus leaves or
in some such dainty design. There were rests for the writer's wrist
and paper weights of fantastic form. For the ink {mo), there is
the pallet {mo yen) for rubbing (Plate 94, Fig. 2), and a bed

1 See Bushell's translation, op. cit., p. 4, - See Bushell, 0. C. A., p. 489.