Page 295 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

PAINTED IN COLOURS OVER THE GLAZE! 177
consists of two parts, the body standing on four feet, with a flange
rim, on which the lion (dog of Fo) topped cover rests. The
colour decoration is in red and green, most delicately applied.
This is a We have seen in what
Kang-he piece. already (p. 99)
high esteem the butterfly is held by the Chinese, so we need
not wonder at their these beautiful for the safe-
having cages
11
keeping of their choice specimens.
No. 299. Sacrificial cup. Height, 2 inches. No mark. This
is a the darker than in the
Ming specimen, green being
which are often decorated with fish-roe
Kang-he pieces, diaper-
work, Avhich gives them a speckled appearance. The general
of these of both and or
colouring cups periods is green yellow,
rather fawn-colour. There is generally a conventionalized face
on these
depicted cups.
No. 300. Libation cup. Height, 3 inches. No mark. This
to
belongs Kang-he period.
The Chinese have sacrificial feasts to various deities, to
ancestors, at the New Year and other seasons, the observances
being much the same at all, with perhaps a change in some of
the articles offered on account of their bejng in some way
symbolical. The account given by Doolittle, at p. 180, of a
feast to the dead, will enable us to form some idea of the
part
these on such occasions " There were offered in the
cups play :
hall before their tablets, a one hundred
pig weighing pounds,
a kid, five kinds of of each kind two heads or
green vegetables,
bunches, five kinds of fruit, and five kinds of seeds, as rice,
wheat, beans, etc. ; also salt, red dregs of wine, a piece of dried
beef, bread-cakes made into five different shapes, a piece of raw
a small of hair and of of
pork, quantity pig's pig's blood, ten cups
tea, and ten cups of wine. The vegetables and meats were all
uncooked. Besides these, there were also ten dishes of food
of meats, fish, fowl, and
already cooked, consisting vegetables,
arranged on a table placed before the tablets. . . . The head
man at the time the while on his
proper during ceremony,
knees, all the rest of the worshippers being also on their knees,
received three of wine, Avhich he
cups poured out, one by one,
upon some straw placed at the bottom of a certain vessel.
11 M. Grandidier, in his "La Ceramique Chinoise," calls this a ritual vase,
known as a ting (perfume burner). " I will mention in the first place those
in the form of cages with reticulated sides."— T. J. L.
N