Page 65 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

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Ch'eng Hua (1465-1487) 25

The following designs are enumerated and explained by Kao
Cliiang-ts'un in the valuable commentary which has already been

mentioned :
11. Wine cups with the design known as " the high-flaming

candle lighting up red beauty," explained as a beautiful damsel
holding a candle to light up hai-fang (cherry apple) blossoms.

12. Brocade heap pattern^ ; explained as " sprays of flowers
and fruit massed (tin) on all sides." ^

13. Cups with swings, with dragon boats, w'ith famous scholars
and with children.

The swings, we are told, represent men and women ^ playing

with swings {ch'iii ch'ien) : the dragon boats represent the dragon
boat races ^ ; the famous scholar {kao sliih) cups have on one side
Chou Mao-shu, lover of the lotus, and on the other T'ao Yiian-
ming sitting before a chrysanthemum plant ; the children {wa wa)
consist of five small children playing together.^

14. Cups with grape-vines on a trellis, fragrant plants, fish
and weeds, gourds, aubergine fruit, the Eight Buddhist Emblems
(pa chi hsiang), yii po lo flowers, and Indian lotus {hsi fan lien)

designs.

None of these need explanation except the Buddhist Emblems,
which are described on p. 298, and the yu po lo, wdiich is generally
explained as a transcription of the Sanskrit iitpala, " the dark blue

lotus."

Though the reader will probably not have the opportunity of
identifying these designs on Ch'eng Hua porcelain, they will help
him in the description of later wares on which these same motives

not infrequently occur. The nine illustrations^ of Ch'eng Hua

porcelain in Hsiang' s Album, for the most part feebly drawn and
badly coloured, form an absurd commentary on the glowing descrip-

^ Chin hui tui, lit. brocade ash-heaps.
* Not as Bushell ( T'ao shuo, op. cit., p. 143), " medallions of flower sprays and

fruits painted on the four sides"; ssu mien (lit. four sides) being a common phrase for
" on all sides" does not necessarily imply a quadrangular object.

' Shih nil, strangely rendered by Bushell " a party of young girls."

* The dragon boats raced on the rivers and were carried in procession through the

streets on the festival of the fifth day of the fifth month. See J. J. M. de Groot, Annales

Aclu Musee Guimet, vol. xi., p. 346. design of children playing at dragon boat pro-

cessions is occasionally seen in later porcelain decoration.

* Cf. the favourite design of children under a pine-tree on Japanese Hirado porce-

lain.

* Op. cit., figs. 38, 49, 55, 56, 63, 64, 65, 66 and 76.

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