Page 258 - Chinese Porcelain Vol II, Galland

3 68 KANG-HE.

the decoration, instead of in rose, as one would
again, being
on a vase of this is in old famille verte
expect shape, style.
there
In Chinese porcelain is always something cropping up
that has not been met with before, and which is very difficult
to understand. The decoration consists of a lady resting under
a pine, with her left arm supported by a huge green pome-
Her basket and hoe, as also the in the
granate. fungus
basket, is in aubergine, but the trunk of the tree, like the
of her dress, is in a brown.
upper part reddy Here, however,
the colour is put on by means of hatching. Her skirt is a
rich yellow, which, with the beautiful green glaze of the foliage
and of her costume, is the charm of the The
tippet piece.
would be difficult to beat that on
green by any Kang-hi piece,
and the combination of the three colours gives a soft, warm,
pleasing effect.
"
This lady is Ch'ang Ngo, who is fabled to live in the
moon, etc."
"
Ch'ang-ngo. The lady, wife of How Yi, who is fabled to
have stolen from her husband the drug of immortality, which
had been given to him by Si Wang Mu, and to have taken
with the with which she
flight precious booty, sought refuge
in the moon. Here she became changed into the Ch'an-ch'u,
or frog, whose outline is traced by the Chinese on the moon's
surface. The legend is found in the works of Hwai Nan Tsze
and Chang Heng, but the ingenuity of commentators has been
in the to
expended fruitlessly attempt explain its origin"
(Mayers, p. 30).
In the illustrated of translated
catalogue early Ming pieces,
by Dr. Bushell, we find mention made of bottle-shaped vases
"
esteemed for rnutan and other and for dif-
holding paeonies,
ferent kinds of orchids, and have small mouths, so that the warm
water with which are filled not out of
they may give vapour
bad odour." Vases seem to have been made of
particular shapes
for particular flowers; while we read of vases with several
mouths " for holding several flowers, so as to allow of a variety
on a small table."
This piece was probably intended as an imitation of the
Ching-hwa painting in enamels on biscuit, the art of painting
in colours over the not then
glaze being known, but, as men-
"
tioned in No. 748, the ground is said to have been pure white."