Page 194 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

KANG-HE.
348

difficult to say where the same commenced or ended, and
which pieces should or should not be included. A plate, like
an individual, must be judged by inherent worth while in the
same so to some members are to
family, speak, vastly superior
others. Take, for instance, No. 245. These plates must have
been imported in considerable numbers, and appear all to be
exactly alike, even to the scene in the centre; but at the
same time some are much finer than others, and the best are
now received into the most exclusive
very justly society,
in the most select col-
occupying places fastidiously private
lections. was a vast town ; the
King-te-chin trading quality
of the wares all the
supplied depended upon price paid ; so it
is all the world over, ever has been, and ever will be. The
trade with Europe via the Cape seems to have reached con-
siderable dimensions by the middle of the reign of Kang-he,
say about 1690, and was probably at its height about seventy
to a hundred years later, when it appears to have been con-
ducted on much the same lines as the trade in Turkey and
Persian You have to the size and
carpets now is. only give
choose the pattern, and in due course a carpet more or less
resembling what you want will be delivered to you. So it was
with china. The tale is told of a lady who wished to match some
saucers, and, to prevent all chance of mistake, wrote on the
" "
bottom of one, 1 doz. like this ; handing it to her merchant.
About a year afterwards she received the saucers, exactly
what she wanted, but on the bottom of
painted every one,
and burnt in along with the other colours, was the remark,
"
1 doz. like this." Where it was wished to from the
depart
beaten and obtain some as in the case
paths special design,
of armorial it seems to have been usual to
bearings, supply
coloured the of which we now find on
drawings, reproductions
much of the old china. Another is told of a
story family
who, to save trouble, merely sent the design they wanted, with
"
green, red, blue," etc., written here and there where those
colours were to be used. At the time the
expected plates
arrived, an exact copy of their order, the colours merely being
indicated by the names written, as in the original sketch.
The been the first to trade with China
Portuguese having
via the we to find a lot of old
Cape, might naturally expect
porcelain in their hands ; but the troubles which, at a later