Page 224 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

A CATALOGUE OF

No. 63

Tall Cylindrica Vase, with rounded shoulder and attenuated neck (club
shape), of fine white hard-textured porcelain, richly decorated over the
glaze in the "famille verte" palette of "seven colors."

The body of vase is covered wdth a brilliant brocaded design, including coral-red

lotus flowers, that are dispersed over the transparent and stippled green ground, together

mwith green leaves; dragons light green and opaque blue are also involved.
Two large upright panels are reserved and separately embellished with rural land-

scapes: rice and silkworm cultivation and figures.

The first panel shows a group of ladies at a window, with an awTiing (disclosing an

winterior th racks holding silkworm trays that are referred to in the Poem above) ; one

of these ladies holds a basket. Another lady, carrying mulberry plamts, is approaching

the house from jm adjoining veranda, followed by an attendant carrying a basket full of
these leaves on his shoulder.

The foreground shows rocks and herbage glazed in varying tints of green ; a finely

mpainted tree is the background, close to the house. The poem and motive are derived

from a publication known under the nemie of Kong-chi-t'u, published, under the Emperor
K'ang-hsi's orders, by the artist Tsiau Ping-chon.'

The second panel represents a watered rice-field, with laborers engaged in sticking
bunches of rice plants into the watered mud near a house; a bridge, and other accesso-

ries of trees, rocks, and herbage, are all carefully and minutely rendered, in brilliant and

transparent glazes of rare clearness, and with considerable regard to perspective values.

A bordering in green key-fret frames these two panels, and the shoulder embellish-

ment begins with a small dentate border, leaving a white margin inclosed between lines,
and a double row of dots, followed by carefully rendered coral-red palmation, emd by a
green fret at the junction of neck and shoulder.

' The painter Tsiau Ping-chon was a native of the near and the far correspond to the large and
to the small without a mistake, for he worked
Tsi-ning in Shem-tung, and occupied the position
according to the method of the West." "An
of a director in the Astronomical Board in Pekin.
observation," writes Professor Hirth, " which
As an artist he is described by his Chinese biog-
seems to be confirmed by his work."
raphers as follows " In placing his figures he made
:

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