Page 296 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

CHINESE PORCELAIN.
178
These were then refilled and on a table before
cups replaced
the tablet, whence they had been taken by the professor of
ceremonies. Before the wine was poured out, he lifted the cups
up reverently in front of him, as though offering them to the
spirits supposed to be in the tablets. Three bowls of vegetables
were presented, as if to the spirits, in the like manner, and then
taken away and placed upon a table. The professor of cere-
monies, at the proper time, knelt down and read, or rather
chanted, a kind of sacrificial prayer to the spirits of the
ancestors of the
departed company present. They being all
the while on their knees, then bowed down their heads toward
the three times, when several rolls of coarse silk, or
ground
something in imitation of silk, were burnt. The great drum
was beaten. All rose up at the command of the professor, and
kept their allotted places. The cooked provisions intended for
the feast were soon arranged on tables, in the proper or
customary manner at feasts. The representatives of the families
' "
interested in the hall their took their seats,
(of ancestors)
and partook of the feast provided in the presence, as they
believe, of their ancestors. All of them were males, no female
allowed to be or in the festivities or
being present participate
solemnities of such occasions. At the close of the feasting,
each took home with him some of the flesh of
representative
the pig which had been offered whole before the tablets.
During the progress of the worship, they all knelt down five
times, and while on their knees bowed down their heads
simultaneously three times. There was no weeping, no smiling,
and no talking, except by the professor of ceremonies. All
was orderly, still, solemn, and reverent."
Nos. 301, 302. A stand.
cylindrical writing-brush Height,
5 inches ; diameter, 4 J- inches. No mark. Made of thickish
ware. The base is wheel-marked, and only partly glazed, with
a cavity bored in the centre and glazed. Decorated with
enamelled colours in green, neutral tint, and yellow, relieved
with red and black. Four male figures, presumably grandfather
and grandson, with fan-bearer at back, while the son walks in
front with a red hanging for door. Motive, probably the
celebration of the
grandfather's birthday.
161 : "When the head of a has arrived
Doolittle, p. family
at the of or if the family are in good
age seventy eighty years,