Page 198 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

CHINESE PORCELAIN.
148
the neck, while the shoulder of the is covered with a bold
jar
conventional flower The various are marked off
design. designs
by double lines, while the base is decorated with leaves of the
which seem ever to have been in favour with
sweet-flag, great
the ceramic artists of China, for we find this same arrangement
of leaves the various series, on the
perpendicular right through
earliest as on the latest pieces.
"
5Qi> : On the of the first of the
Doolittle, p. morning day
fifth Chinese month, every family nails up on each side of the
front doors and windows of its house a few leaves of the sweet-
and of the artemisia. The leaves of
ilag (Acorus gramineus)
the are to a re-
sweet-flag long and slender, tapering point,
sembling the general shape of a sword. When used as above,
swords. It is said that evil on
they represent spirits, coming
near the house and seeing these leaves nailed up, will take
"
them for swords, and run off as fast as can !
they
with the
top part
No. 222. Dish, deep, of the side carved
outwards, so that it forms a sort of steep rim. Diameter, 13j
inches ; height, 2 J inches. No mark. The edge is coloured
blue. The stand is unglazed at its edge, while the base shows
the wheel marks covered with glaze. This dish appears to
have been so coated with that the brown-coloured
thinly glaze
of which is made seems to show The
porcelain it through.
decoration is very roughly executed, being marked off in the
centre by double blue lines, enclosing a court dignitary and
fan-bearer on the verandah of some pavilion. Beyond this
there is a very rough arabesque and another set of blue lines,
from which spring eight large and eight small radiating com-
the latter filled with flowers, as also four of
partments, being
the large. Of the remaining four large, two are decorated
with a man shouldering an oar, with a net thrown over it, and
two with a man carrying two bundles of faggots by means of a
pole. Among the Chinese a man with faggots represents a
secluded life in the country, and a man with a net the same
thing by the sea, which, no doubt, is the meaning in this case.
The man and alone is not met with, and
faggots unfrequently
refers to the —
probably following:
"
239 of the
Mayers, p. : Wang Chih, one of the patriarchs
Taoist sect. It is recorded of him that he flourished under the
Tsin dynasty, and having wandered in the mountains of K'ii