Page 243 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

that an official who lived at the beginning of the

seventeenth century had two of these little cups which

were valued at fifteen hundred dollars the pair. Lotus

leaves and blossoms, figure subjects, insects, especially

grasshoppers, and floral designs, were among the

favourite decorations of the era. Among the speci-

mens depicted in H'siang's Catalogue there are four

of the celebrated little wine-cups. Two of them

have the lower part of the outer surface coloured so

as to represent sward, from which spring flowers
Athe coxcomb, narcissus, and marigold.
dragon-fly

hovers in the white field of one cup and a mantis

creeps in the green of the other. The tiny vessels

have a diameter of two inches and a height of one

and a half, yet they are said to have been valued at

100 taels the pair in H'siang's day. The two other

cups shown have flat bottoms and are of similar

dimensions. They are decorated with blue sous cou-

tverte in combination with verifiable enamels. The

designs are flowers, fighting cocks and geese swim-
ming waves. Judging from these four specimens, the

palette of the Cheng-hwa decorator contained five
colours, red, green, yellow, blue, and purple.

Every one of H'siang's Cheng-hwa specimens is a

dainty and choice object. The miniature wine-cups

spoken of above show that the experts of the time
had conceived and skilfully utilised the idea of mak-
ing enamel pictures on their pieces. That is to say,
they no longer subordinated their enamels to the gen-
eral form of the specimen, but used them to depict

independent subjects on its white surface. They still,

indeed, practised the former method, and regarded its

skilful employment as their greatest tour de force.

H'siang's Catalogue contains exquisite examples of

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