Page 266 - Chinese porcelains collected by Mr. and Mrs. Charles P. Taft, Cincinnati, Ohio, by John Getz

;

A CATALOGUE OF

No. 76

Square Vase, " black-hawthorn " variety, tall, with rectangular body
tapering downward from curved shoulder that unites with the graceful
flaring (mortar-shaped) neck: the porcelain is of dense white kaolinic
paste, and of fine texture, showing at the foot and on the edges of the

four panels.

TTie four sides are superbly embellished with favorite Mandarin flower subjects, in bril-
licint polychrome colors, pleasingly relieved by the soft greenish-black enameled ground.^

Graceful flowering plants are presented on each vertical panel, that symbolize a
season : i.e., the fair peony for spring, the lotus for summer, the chrysanthemum for
autumn, and the wild prunus (hawthorn) for winter, showing the blossoms in red and
white ; all are skilfully rendered in drawing and in typical colored glazes, including red

mof iron, with the foliage and rugged masses of rocks vanous brilliant shades of green

the stems are glcized a characteristic manganese (purple tone) employed during the pre-
fecture of Lang, under the Ejnperor K'ang-hsi.

The neck and four comers of shoulder are separately enriched by sprays of blossoms
and flowers, with the black ground-color of body ; two nanow borders in " herring-

'

bone ' chevrons, picked out in green and yellow glazes, encircle the top and the base

of neck.

The foot is in biscuit, and has a sunken glcized panel bearing the six (apocryphal)
Ming marks of Ch'eng-hua ( 1 465- 1 487), but the specimen may be ascribed v^th more

certainty as early K'emg-hsi (1662-1722).

Height, 20 8 inches.
'

Diameter at shoulder, 5^4x4^4 inches.

Diameter at foot, 4*2x4 '2 inches.

From the collection of Chcing-yen Huan, formerly Minister to Washington and
special Imperial envoy to England at the Queen's Jubilee.

' Specimens with a black enameled ground in to us from those remarkable epochs in ceramic art ;
which the design is reserved for a separate glaz-
ingcure among the inventions for which the Chinese from which we may amply adduce the great skill
deserve special credit, as they are technically of ancient ceramists, aside from any designs by
2imong the most notable productions handed down their great painters which may have inspired them.

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