CHAPTER X

K’ANG HSI POLYCHROME PORCELAINS

Broadly speaking, the polychrome porcelains of the Ming and K’ang Hsi periods are the same in principle, though they differ widely in style and execution. The general types continued, and the first to be considered is that in which all the colours are fired in the high temperature of the large kiln, comprising underglaze blue and underglaze red, and certain slips and coloured glazes. Conspicuous among the last is a pale golden brown commonly known as Nanking yellow, which is found in narrow bands or in broad washes, dividing or surrounding blue designs, and is specially common on the bottles, sprinklers, gourd-shaped vases, and small jars exported to Europe in the last half of the seventeenth century. The golden brown also darkens into coffee brown, and in some cases it alternates in bands with buff crackle and pale celadon green.

A deep olive brown glaze is sometimes found as a background for ornament in moulded reliefs which are touched with underglaze blue and red. A fine vase of this type is in the Salting Collection, and a good example was given by Mr. Andrew Burman to the British Museum. Both seem to be designed after bronze models.

But the central colour of this group is undoubtedly the underglaze red. Derived from copper it is closely akin to the red of the _chi hung_ glaze, and both were conspicuous on the Hsüan Tê porcelain, both fell into disuse in the later Ming periods, and both were revived in the reign of K’ang Hsi.

I have seen two examples of this colour in combination with underglaze blue bearing the hall mark _chung-ho-t’ang_, and cyclical dates corresponding to 1671 and 1672 respectively. In neither of these pieces, however, was the red very successful, and probably the better K’ang Hsi specimens belong to a later period of the reign. It was, however, always a difficult colour to fire, and examples in which the red is perfectly developed are rare. As a rule, it tends to assume a maroon or dark reddish brown tint.

Nor is the method of its application always the same. Sometimes it is painted on in clean, crisp brush strokes; at others it is piled up in thick washes which flow in the firing and assume some of the qualities and the colour of _sang de bœuf_ red, even displaying occasional crackle; on other pieces again a “peach bloom” tint is developed.[295] On two of the best examples in the Franks Collection, where a deep blood red is combined with a fine quality of blue, it is noteworthy that the surface of the white glaze has a peculiar dull lustre. This, I understand, is due to “sulphuring” in the kiln, a condition which, whether accidental or intentional, is certainly favourable to the red colour. It is also noticeable that the red is particularly successful under a glaze which is faintly tinged with celadon green such as is often used on imitations of Ming porcelains, and it was no doubt this consideration which led to the frequent use of celadon green in this group. The celadon is used either as a ground colour for the whole piece or in parts only of the design, and the addition of white slip further strengthened the palette. With these colours some exquisite effects have been compassed in such designs as birds on prunus boughs and storks among lotus plants, the main design being in blue, the blossoms in white slip slightly raised and touched with red, and the background plain white, celadon green (Plate 115), and sometimes pale lavender blue. The celadon and pale lavender vases with this decoration were favourites with the French in the eighteenth century, and many sets of vases and beakers in this style have been furnished with sumptuous ormolu mounts by the French goldsmiths.

The painting in underglaze red, which was revived in the K’ang Hsi period, continued with success in the succeeding reigns of Yung Chêng and Ch’ien Lung (indeed it has not ceased to this day), but the bulk of the finer examples in our collections seem to belong to the late K’ang Hsi and the Yung Chêng periods. The underglaze red is used alone as well as in combination, and some of its most successful effects are found on small objects like colour boxes and snuff bottles.

The black or brown pigment used for outlining designs under the softer enamel colours such as green and yellow, though in one sense an underglaze colour, does not belong to this group.

From this group of polychrome porcelain we pass to another in which the colour is given by washes of various glazes. A few of the high-fired glazes are employed for this purpose, especially blue in combination with celadon green and white, and a few clay slips, of which the commonest is a dressing of brown clay applied without any glaze and producing an iron-coloured surface. The most familiar members of this group are small Taoist figures of rough but vivacious modelling with draperies glazed blue, celadon and white,[296] and the base unglazed and slightly browned in the firing. Collectors are tempted to regard these figures as late or modern productions, but examples in the Dresden collection prove that this technique was employed in the K’ang Hsi period. In the same collection there are numbers of small toy figures, such as monkeys, oxen, grotesque human forms, etc., sometimes serving as whistles or as water-droppers. They are made of coarse porcelain or stoneware with a thin dressing of brown ferruginous clay, and touches of high-fired glazes. The appearance of these, too, is so modern that we realise with feelings of surprise that they formed part of the collection of Augustus the Strong.

The polychrome porcelain coloured with glazes of the _demi-grand feu_ (i.e. glazes fired in the more temperate parts of the large kiln) has been discussed in the chapters on the Ming period.[297] The group characterised by green, turquoise and aubergine violet, semi-opaque, and minutely crackled is not conspicuous among K’ang Hsi porcelains; indeed it seems to have virtually ceased with the Ming dynasty. The individual colours, however, were still used as monochromes; in combination they are chiefly represented by aubergine violet and turquoise in broad washes on such objects as peach-shaped wine pots, Buddhist lions with joss-stick holders attached, parrots, and similar ornaments.

The other three-colour group, composed of transparent green, yellow and aubergine purple glazes, usually associated with designs finely etched with a metal point on the body, were freely used in the K’ang Hsi and Yung Chêng periods in imitation of Ming prototypes. Such specimens are often characterised by extreme neatness of workmanship and technical perfection of the ware. The best-known examples are thin, beautifully potted rice bowls, with slightly everted rim, and a design of five-clawed Imperial dragons traced with a point and filled in with a colour contrasting with that of the ground, e.g. green on yellow, or green on aubergine, all the possible changes being rung on the three colours. Being Imperial wares these bowls are usually marked with the _nien hao_ of their period, but such is the trimness of their make that collectors are tempted to regard them as specimens of a later reign. But here again the Dresden collection gives important evidence, for it contains a bowl of this class with dragons in a remarkable purplish black colour (probably an accidental variety of the aubergine) in a yellow ground. It bears the mark of the K’ang Hsi period.

The application of similar plumbo-alcaline glazes to a commoner type of porcelain is described by Père d’Entrecolles[298]:--“There is a kind of coloured porcelain which is sold at a lower rate than the enamelled ware just described.... The material required for this work need not be so fine. Vessels which have already been baked in the great furnace without glaze, and consequently white and lustreless, are coloured by immersion in a bowl filled with the colouring preparation if they are intended to be monochrome. But if they are required to be polychrome like the objects called _hoam lou houan_,[299] which are divided into kinds of panels, one green, one yellow, etc., the colours are laid on with a large brush. This is all that need be done to this type of porcelain, except that after the firing a little vermilion is applied to certain parts such as the beaks of birds, etc. This vermilion, however, is not fired, as it would evaporate in the kiln, and consequently it does not last. When the various colours have been applied, the porcelain is refired in the great furnace with the other wares which have not yet been baked; but care is taken to place it at the bottom of the furnace and below the vent-hole where the fire is less fierce; otherwise the great heat would destroy the colours.”

[Illustration: PLATE 95

Two examples of Porcelain painted with coloured enamels on the biscuit, the details of the designs being first traced in brown. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722)

Fig. 1.--One of a pair of Buddhistic Lions, sometimes called Dogs of Fo. This is apparently the lioness, with her cub: the lion has a ball of brocade under his paw. On the head is the character _wang_ (prince) which is more usual on the tiger of Chinese art. Height 18 inches. _S. E. Kennedy Collection._

Fig. 2.--Bottle-shaped Vase and Stand moulded in bamboo pattern and decorated with floral brocade designs and diapers. Height 8¾ inches. _Cope Bequest_ (_Victoria & Albert Museum_).]

In this interesting passage, written in 1722, we have a precise account of the manufacture of one of the types of porcelain which have been indiscriminately assigned to the Ming period. This on-biscuit polychrome was undoubtedly made in the Ming dynasty, but in view of d’Entrecolles’ description it will be safe to assume that, unless there is some very good evidence to the contrary, the examples in our collections are not older than K’ang Hsi. The type is easily identified from the above quotation, and there is a little group of the wares in the British Museum, mostly small figures and ornaments with washes of green, brownish yellow and aubergine purple applied direct to the biscuit, and on some of the unglazed details the unfired vermilion still adheres. These coloured glazes are compounded with powdered flint, lead, saltpetre, and colouring oxides, and the porcelain belongs to the comprehensive group of _san ts’ai_ or three-colour ware, although the three colours--green, yellow and aubergine--are supplemented by a black formed of brown black pigment under one of the translucent glazes and a white which d’Entrecolles describes[300] as composed of ⅖ ounce of powdered flint to every ounce of white lead. This last forms the thin, iridescent film often of a faintly greenish tinge, which serves as white on these three-colour porcelains. In rare cases also a violet blue enamel is added to the colour scheme.

A characteristic of this particular type is the absence of any painted outlines. The colours are merely broad washes bounded by the flow of the glaze, and this style of polychrome is best suited to figures and moulded ornamental pieces, in which the details of the design form natural lines of demarcation for the glazes. On a flat surface this method of coloration is only suited to such patchy patterns as the so-called tiger skin and the tortoiseshell wares.

The Dresden collection is peculiarly rich in this kind of _san ts’ai_, but though two or three of the specimens (Plate 71, Figs. 1 and 2) differing considerably from the rest, are clearly of the Ming period, the great majority are undoubtedly contemporaneous with the forming of the collection, viz. of the K’ang Hsi period. The latter include numerous figures, human and animal, and ornaments such as the junk on Plate 98, besides some complicated structures of rocks and shrines and grottos, peopled with tiny images and human figures. To this group belong such specimens as the “brinjal bowls,” with everted rim and slight floral designs engraved in outline and filled in with coloured glaze in a ground of aubergine (brinjal) purple. There are similar specimens with green ground, and both types are frequently classed with Ming wares. Some of them may indeed belong to the late Ming period,[301] but those with finer finish are certainly K’ang Hsi. They are usually marked with rough, undecipherable seal marks in blue, which are commonly known as shop marks.

Some of the figures of deities, birds and animals, besides the small ornamental objects such as brush-washers in the form of lotus leaves and little water vessels for the writing table are of very high quality, skilfully modelled and of material far finer than that described by d’Entrecolles. Fig. 2, Plate 99, a statuette of Ho Hsien-ku, one of the Eight Immortals, is an example. The flesh is in white biscuit, showing the fine grain of the porcelain, white to-day, though possibly it was originally coloured with unfired pigment and gilt as was often the case. The glazes on this finer quality of ware, especially the green and the aubergine, are peculiarly smooth and sleek, and the yellow is fuller and browner than on the kindred ware, enamelled on the biscuit, which we now proceed to investigate.

The French term, _émaillé sur biscuit_, is used somewhat broadly to cover the coloured glazes just described, as well as the enamels proper of the muffle kiln. We shall try to confine the expression, “on-biscuit enamels,” to the softer, verifiable enamels which are fired at a lower temperature and in a smaller kiln or muffle. These are, in fact, the same enamels as are used in the ordinary _famille verte_ porcelain painted over the finished glaze, but when applied direct to the biscuit they have a slightly darker and mellower tone, the background of biscuit reflecting less light than the glittering white glaze.

[Illustration: PLATE 96

Vase of baluster form painted in coloured enamels on the biscuit. The design, which is outlined in brown, consists of a beautifully drawn prunus (_mei hua_) tree in blossom and hovering birds, beside a rockery and smaller plants of bamboo, etc., set in a ground of mottled green. Ch’êng Hua mark but K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722)

Height 16¾ inches. _British Museum._]

Though the colour scheme of this group is substantially the same as that of the _san ts’ai_ glazes, and though the enamels when used in wide areas are not always easily distinguished from the glazes, the former do, in fact, differ in containing more lead, being actually softer and more liable to acquire crackle and iridescence, and in some cases there are appreciable differences in tint. The yellow enamel, for instance, is as a rule paler, and even when of a dark tint it has a muddy tone wanting in the fullness and strength of the yellow glaze; the green enamel varies widely in tone from the glaze, and includes, besides, several fresh shades, among which is a soft apple green of great beauty; and the aubergine is less claret coloured and often of a decidedly pinkish tone.

But perhaps the most distinctive feature of this _san ts’ai_ of the muffle kiln is the careful tracing of the design in a brown black pigment on the biscuit. The transparent enamels are washed on over these black outlines, and give appropriate colours without obscuring the design which is already complete in itself.[302] The same brown black pigment[303] is also used over wide areas, laid on thickly and washed with transparent green to form the fine green black which is so highly prized. Like so much of the porcelain with coloured ornament applied to the biscuit this large group has been indiscriminately assigned to the Ming dynasty. The lack of documentary evidence has made it difficult to combat this obvious fallacy, obvious because the form and style of decoration of the finest specimens are purely K’ang Hsi in taste and feeling; but, while fully recognising that the scheme of decoration was not a new one, but had been in use in the Ming porcelains, I would point a warning finger again[304] to the ink slab in the British Museum with its design of aubergine plum blossoms on conventional green waves, its borders of lozenge and hexagon diaper, all enamelled on the biscuit, and in the characteristic style habitually described as Ming in sale catalogues, but actually dated 1692. Another consideration is the quantity of these pieces in the Dresden collection which consists mainly of K’ang Hsi wares, and the presence of several examples (e.g. bamboo vases such as Fig. 2 of Plate 95) in the rooms of the Charlottenburg Palace, which were furnished mainly with presents made by the British East India Company to Queen Sophia Charlotte (1668–1705).

Marks are rare on this group, as a whole, though they occur fairly frequently on the large vases, the commonest being the date mark of the Ch’êng Hua period. No one would, however, seriously argue a fifteenth century date from this mark which is far more common than any other on K’ang Hsi porcelain; and I have actually seen the K’ang Hsi mark on one or two specimens which appeared to be perfectly genuine. Curiously enough the K’ang Hsi mark is more often a sign of a modern imitation, but this in view of the perverse methods of marking Chinese porcelain is in itself evidence that the modern copyist regards the reign of K’ang Hsi as the best period of manufacture for this style of ware.

[Illustration: PLATE 97

Square Vase with pendulous body and high neck slightly expanding towards the top: two handles in the form of archaic lizard-like dragons (_chih lung_), and a pyramidal base. Porcelain painted with coloured enamels on the biscuit, with scenes representing Immortals on a log raft approaching Mount P’êng-lai in the Taoist Paradise. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722)

Height 20½ inches. _British Museum._]

The noblest examples of this group, and perhaps the finest of all Chinese polychromes, are the splendid vases with designs reserved in grounds of green black, yellow or leaf green. Plates 96, 97 and Frontispiece will serve to illustrate the colours and at the same time some of the favourite forms[305] of these sumptuous pieces, the baluster vase, and the square vase with pendulous body, pyramidal base, and two handles usually of archaic dragon form. The favourite design for the decoration of these forms is the flowering prunus tree, beside a rockery with a few bright plumaged birds in the branches, one of the most familiar and at the same time most beautiful of Chinese patterns (see Plate 96). The flowers of the four seasons--peony, lotus, chrysanthemum and prunus--form a beautiful decoration for the four sides of another favourite form, a tall vase of square elevation with sides lightly tapering downwards, rounded shoulders, arid circular neck, slightly flaring at the mouth. The specimens illustrated are in the British Museum, but there is a wonderful series of these lordly vases in the Salting Collection, and in the Pierpont Morgan and Altmann Collections in New York. To-day they are rare, and change hands at enormous prices. Consequently all manner of imitations abound, European and Oriental, the modern Chinese work in this style being often highly successful. But the most insidious copies are the deliberate frauds in which old K’ang Hsi vases are stripped of a relatively cheap form of decoration, the glaze and colour being removed by grinding, and furnished with a cleverly enamelled design in colours on the biscuit. The actual colours are often excellent, and as the ware seen at the base is the genuine K’ang Hsi porcelain even the experienced connoisseur may be deceived at first, though probably his misgivings will be aroused by something in the drawing which betrays the copyist, and a searching examination of the surface will reveal some traces of the sinister treatment to which it has been subjected or the tell-tale marks, such as black specks or burns, left on the foot rim by the process of refiring. There is much truth besides in the saying that things “look their age,” and artificial signs of wear imparted by friction and rubbing with sand or grit are not difficult for the experienced eye to detect.

As already noted, the black of the precious black-ground vases, the _famille noire_ as they are sometimes called, is formed by overlaying a dull black pigment with washes of transparent green enamel. The result is a rich greenish black, the enamel imparting life and fire to the dull pigment; and as the green is fluxed with lead it tends to become iridescent, giving an additional green _reflet_ to the black surface. The modern potters have learnt to impart an iridescence to their enamels, and one often sees a strong lustre on specimens which are clearly “hot from the kiln”; but these enamels have a sticky appearance differing widely from the mellow lustre which

## partial decay has spread over the K’ang Hsi colours. It will be found,

besides, that the shapes of the modern copies are wanting in the grace and feeling of the originals.

This type of porcelain enamelled on the biscuit is particularly well suited to statuettes and ornamental objects of complex form. The details of the biscuit remain sharp and clear, and there is no thick white glaze to soften the projections and fill up the cavities, for the washes of transparent enamel are too slight to obscure the modelling. Consequently we find in this style of ware all the familiar Chinese figures, the Buddhist and Taoist deities, demigods, and sages, which, like our own madonnas and saints, mostly conform to well established conventions, differing mainly in their size, the quality of their finish, the form of their bases or pedestals, and the details of the surface colouring. Of these the figures of Kuan-yin[306] are the most frequent and the most attractive, the compassionate goddess with sweet pensive face, mounted on a lotus pedestal or a rocky throne and sometimes canopied with a cloak which serves as a hood and a covering for her back and shoulders. She has moreover a long flowing robe open at the neck, and displaying a jewelled necklace on her bare bosom. There are, besides, the god of Longevity: the Eight Immortals: Tung-fang So with his stolen peaches: the star-gods of Longevity, Rank, and Happiness: the twin genii of Mirth and Harmony: Kuan-ti, the god of War, on a throne or on horseback: Lao-tzŭ on his ox: the demon-like Kuei Hsing, and the dignified Wên Ch’ang, gods of Literature; and all the throng. There are a few animal forms such as the horse, the ox, the elephant, the mythical _ch’i-lin_, and most common of all the Buddhist lions (sometimes called the dogs of Fo), usually in pairs, one with a cub, and the other playing with a ball of brocade, mounted on an oblong base, to which is attached, in the smaller sizes at any rate, a tube for holding incense sticks. Other familiar objects are four-footed or tripod stands for manuscript rolls, boxes for brushes colours, etc., ink screens, water pots of fanciful shape for the writing table, picture plaques (Plate 100), supper sets made up of a number of small trays which fit together in the form of a lotus flower[307] or a rosette, perforated boxes and hanging vases for fragrant flowers (Fig. 2 of Plate 98), “butterfly cages,” and “cricket boxes.” Another well-known specimen represents the famous T’ang poet, Li T’ai-po, the Horace of China, reclining in drunken stupor against a half overturned wine jar, the whole serving as a water vessel for the writing table.

Instances of the combination of on-glaze and on-biscuit enamels in the same piece also occur. Thus on the splendid black-ground potiche in the Franks Collection (Frontispiece) passages of white glaze have been inserted to receive the coral red colour which apparently could not be applied to the biscuit. And conversely in the ordinary _famille verte_ decoration on the glaze there are sometimes inserted small areas of on-biscuit enamels on borders, handles, base ornaments, etc. Such combinations give an excellent opportunity for observing the contrast between the softer, fuller tints on the biscuit and the brighter, more jewel-like enamels on the white glaze. In rare instances we find passages of blue and white decoration associated with the on-biscuit enamels as on the curious ewer illustrated by Fig. 1 of Plate 94. Blue and white is similarly combined with decoration in coloured glazes on the biscuit in a late Ming jar in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Case 9, No. 4396–57).

[Illustration: Plate 98.--K’ang Hsi Porcelain with on-biscuit decoration.

_Dresden Collection._

Fig. 1.--Teapot in form of a lotus seed-pod, enamels on the biscuit. Height 2¾ inches.

Fig. 2.--Hanging Perfume Vase, reticulated, enamels on the biscuit. Height 3½ inches.

Fig. 3.--Ornament in form of a junk, transparent _san ts’ai_ glazes. Height 11½ inches.]

[Illustration:

Plate 99.--K’ang Hsi Porcelain with on-biscuit decoration.

Fig. 1.--Ewer with black enamel ground, lion handle. Height 8¾ inches. _Cope Bequest_ (_V. & A. Museum_).

Fig. 2.--Figure of the Taoist Immortal, Ho Hsien Ku, transparent _san ts’ai_ glazes. Height 10⅛ inches. _S. E. Kennedy Collection._

Fig. 3.--Vase and Stand, enamelled on the biscuit. Height 8¾ inches. _Cope Bequest._]

[Illustration: Plate 100.--Screen with Porcelain Plaque, painted in enamels on the biscuit.

Light green background. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). Total height 22½ inches.

_In the Collection of the Hon. E. Evan Charteris._]

[Illustration: Plate 101.--Vase with panels of landscapes and _po ku_ symbols in _famille verte_ enamels

In a ground of underglaze blue trellis pattern. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). Height 32 inches. _Dresden Collection._]

[Illustration: Plate 102.--Two Dishes of _famille verte_ Porcelain in the _Dresden Collection_. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722).

Fig. 1.--With birds on a flowering branch, brocade borders. Artist’s signature in the field. Diameter 16 inches.

Fig. 2.--With ladies on a garden terrace. Diameter 21 inches.]

The familiar phrase, _famille verte_, was first used by Jacquemart as a class name for the enamelled porcelains on which green plays a leading part. According to this definition it should include the _Wan li wu ts’ai_, the Ming enamelled porcelain, as well as much of the on-biscuit enamelled wares, in addition to the typical K’ang Hsi enamelled porcelain to which usage has specially consecrated the term. A direct descendant of the _Wan li wu ts’ai_, the _famille verte_ includes the combinations of underglaze blue with the translucent on-glaze enamels green, yellow, and aubergine, and the coral red (derived from iron), the French _rouge de fer_, which is so thin that it resembles a pigment rather than a vitreous enamel. Add to these the brown black pigment, which is used to trace the outlines of the design and with a covering of green to form the green black, and we have one type of _famille verte_ which differs in no essential from the Wan Li prototype. It is, in fact, no easy matter to find the line which divides the two groups. The nature of the ware and the style of the painting are the best guides; and the study of the K’ang Hsi blue and white will be a great help in this delicate task.

But the real K’ang Hsi _famille verte_, which we might call the _K’ang hsi wu ts’ai_, is distinguished by the addition of an overglaze blue enamel which enhanced the brilliancy of the colour scheme, and at the same time removed the necessity of using underglaze and overglaze colours together.[308] It is not to be supposed, however, that the underglaze blue disappeared entirely from the group. The old types were always dear to the Chinese mind, and there were frequent revivals of these in addition to the special wares,[309] such as the “Chinese Imari,” in which this kind of blue was essential. There are indeed examples of both blues on the same pieces.

The history of this overglaze blue enamel has already[310] been

## partially discussed, and evidence has been given of its tentative

use in the Wan Li porcelain. A passage in the second letter of Père d’Entrecolles[311] actually places its invention about the year 1700, but the worthy father’s chronology (based no doubt chiefly on hearsay) is often at fault. It is fairly certain, however, that the blue enamel was not used to any extent before the Ch’ing dynasty, owing no doubt to the fact that it had not been satisfactorily made until that date.

A beautiful enamel of violet blue tone, it is an important factor of the _famille verte_ decoration, and the merits of a vase or dish are often decided on the purity and brilliance of this colour alone. There is, however, something in the nature of the enamel which seems to affect the surrounding glaze; at any rate, it is often ringed about by a kind of halo of dull lustre, reflecting faint rainbow tints to a distance of perhaps an inch from the edge of the blue. It is as though an exhalation from the blue enamel deposited a thin film of lustre on the glaze, and it is a very frequent occurrence, though not always in the same conspicuous degree. Collectors who are ever looking for a sign have been tempted to hail its presence as a sure proof of antiquity. But it is by no means constant on the old _famille verte_, and it has yet to be proved that the same enamel will not produce a similar effect on the modern glaze.

In view of the appreciation of _famille verte_ porcelain at the present day a contemporary criticism will be of interest. D’Entrecolles in his first letter,[312] referring to “porcelain painted with landscapes in a medley of almost all the colours heightened with gilding,” says: “They are very beautiful, if one pays a high price, but the ordinary wares of this kind are not to be compared with blue and white.” And again,[313] following an exact description of painting with enamel colours on the finished glaze and of the subsequent refiring of the ware, we read: “Sometimes the painting is intentionally reserved for the second firing; at other times they only use the second firing to conceal defects in the porcelain, applying the colours to the faulty places. This porcelain, which is loaded with colour, is not to the taste of a good many people. As a rule one can feel inequalities on the surface of this kind of porcelain, whether due to the clumsiness of the workmen, to the exigencies of light and shade in the painting, or to the desire to conceal defects in the body of the ware.”

The tenor of these criticisms will not be endorsed by the modern collector of K’ang Hsi porcelain. _Famille verte_ porcelain is enthusiastically sought, and even indifferent specimens command a high price, while the really choice examples can only be purchased by the wealthy. As to the inequalities on the surface, the second of the three reasons hazarded by d’Entrecolles is nearest the truth. The enamels used by the Chinese porcelain painter contain a remarkably small percentage of colouring oxide, and one of the characteristics of _famille verte_ colours is their transparency. To obtain full tones and the contrast between light and shade (even to the limited extent to which the Chinese use this convention) it was necessary to pile up the layers of colour at the risk of unduly thickening the enamel. But the connoisseur of to-day finds nothing amiss in these jewel-like incrustations of colour, so long as the enamels are pure and bright, and have not scaled off or suffered too severely from the wear to which their prominent surface is exposed.

It seems[314] that when the porcelain was destined to receive on-glaze enamels (without any underglaze blue) a special glazing mixture was used in which only one part of the softening element[315] was combined with thirteen of the ordinary glazing fluid. This glaze was very white and strong, and too opaque to do justice to an underglaze blue.

There is a reference in the first letter of Père d’Entrecolles to a white colour which was used on the “porcelain painted in various colours.” It was fluxed with lead like the other enamel colours, and it was also used mixed with the latter to modify their tint. In fact there can be little doubt that it was arsenical white, an opaque white familiar on the Yung Chêng and Ch’ien Lung porcelains, and prominent in the _famille rose_ palette, but not usually suspected of such an early appearance as 1712, the date of the letter in question.

The designs of the _famille verte_ porcelain, like those on the blue and white, are first traced in outline and then filled in with washes of colour. The outlines are in a dry dull pigment of red or brown black tint, inconspicuous in itself, but acquiring prominence when covered with transparent enamel. M. Grandidier tried to formulate certain rules for these outlines which, if reliable, would simplify greatly the task of dating the porcelains. On Ming ware, he said, the outlines were blue; on K’ang Hsi wares the face and body outlines were red, those of the vestments and other objects black. Unfortunately the first of these generalisations is wholly wrong, and the second pointless, because only

## partly right.

Omitting the underglaze blue as foreign to this particular group of _famille verte_ under discussion, the colours consist of dark leaf green often of a mottled appearance, a beautiful light apple green, which is characteristic of the K’ang Hsi wares just as the blue green is of the sixteenth century polychrome, an aubergine colour (derived from manganese) which varies from purple brown to rosy purple, a yellow of varying purity and usually of brownish tone, a green black formed of the brown black pigment under washes of transparent green, a blue enamel of violet tone, and the thin iron red. The blue enamel and the red are sometimes omitted, leaving a soft harmony of green, aubergine and yellow in which green plays the chief part. A little gilding is often used to heighten parts of the design.

As for the shapes of the _famille verte_ porcelain, they are substantially the same as those of the blue and white and call for no further comment. The designs, too, of the painted decoration are clearly derived from the same sources as those in the blue and white, viz. books of stock patterns, pictures, illustrations of history and romance, and of such other subjects as happened to be specially appropriate or of general interest.

To take a single instance of a pictorial design, the familiar rockery and flowering plants (peony, magnolia, etc.) and a gay-plumaged pheasant lends itself to effective treatment in enamel colours. It is taken from a picture, probably Sung in origin, but there are many repetitions of it in pictorial art, one of which by the Ming painter Wang-yu is in the British Museum collection.[316] The original is said to have been painted by the Emperor Hui Tsung in the beginning of the twelfth century. Another familiar design--quails and millet--is reputed to have been painted by the same Imperial artist.

A good instance of the kind of illustrated book which supplied the porcelain decorator with designs is the _Yü chih kêng chih t’u_ (Album of Ploughing and Weaving, compiled by Imperial order), which deals with the cultivation of rice and silk in some forty illustrations. It was first issued in the reign of K’ang Hsi, and there are copies of the original and of several later editions in the British Museum. A specimen of _famille rose_ porcelain in the Franks Collection is decorated with a scene from this work, and in the Andrew Burman Collection there are two _famille verte_ dishes with designs from the same source. In the Burdett Coutts Collection, again, there is a polygonal bowl with subjects on each side representing the various stages of cotton cultivation, evidently borrowed from an analogous work.

[Illustration: PLATE 103

Club-shaped (_rouleau_) Vase finely painted in _famille verte_ enamels with panel designs in a ground of chrysanthemum scrolls in iron red; brocade borders. Last part of the K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722)

Height 17 inches. _Salting Collection_ (_Victoria and Albert Museum_).]

Signatures and seals of the artist usually attached to a stanza of verse, or a few phrases which allude to the subject, are often found in the field of the pictorial designs. Fig. 1 of Plate 102, for instance, belongs to a series of beautiful dishes in the Dresden collection, which display the same seal--apparently[317] _wan shih chü_ (myriad rocks retreat), the studio name not, I think, of the porcelain painter but of the artist whose picture was copied on the porcelain. There are numerous examples of similar seals in the field of the design, and we shall return to the subject later in a place where important issues turn on the solution of the problem which it raises.[318]

The types of _famille verte_ porcelain are extremely numerous, almost as varied as those of the blue and white (p. 136). Like the latter they include much that was obviously made for European consumption, and most of the groups which were singled out from the mass of blue and white for special description can be paralleled in the _famille verte_. The thin, crisp, moulded ware with petal-shaped panels and lobed borders, the group with the “G” mark, and many other types are found with the same peculiarities of paste and glaze, and even the same design painted in on-glaze enamels. As in the case of the blue and white, the quality of this export ware varies widely, and the individual specimens will be judged by the drawing of the designs and the purity and fire of the enamels.

A few of the more striking types are illustrated on Plates 103 and 104. Perhaps the most sumptuous effects of this colour scheme are displayed in the vases decorated with panel designs surrounded by rich diapers borrowed from silk brocades. A favourite brocade pattern consists of single blossoms or floral sprays woven into a ground of transparent green covering a powder of small brown dots. This dotted green ground is commonly known as “frog’s spawn,” and another diaper of small circles under a similar green enamel is easily recognised under the name of “fish roe.” But the variety of these ground patterns is great, and in spite of their prosaic nomenclature they render in a singularly effective manner the soft splendour of the Chinese brocades.

In dating the _famille verte_ porcelains the collector will find his study of the blue and white of great assistance. There is, for instance, the well-known type of export ware--sets of vases with complex moulding, and dishes and plates, etc., with petal-shaped lobes on the sides or borders. The central design of the decoration commonly consists of _ch’i lin_, and phœnix, sea monsters (_hai shou_), storks or ducks beside a flowering tree or some such familiar pattern; and the surrounding petal-shaped panels are filled each with a growing flower, or a vignette of bird and plant, plant and insect, or even a small landscape. These bright but often perfunctorily painted wares are paralleled in the early K’ang Hsi blue and white. They are among the first Chinese polychrome porcelains to be copied by the European potters. See Plate 107.

In the purely native wares the early Ch’ing _famille verte_ is distinguished by strong and rather emphatic colouring, the energy of the drawing and the breadth of design which recall the late Ming polychromes. The zenith of this style of decoration was reached about 1700, say between 1682 and 1710. This is the period of the magnificent vases with panel designs in brocaded grounds, or with crowded figure subjects, Court scenes, and the like, filling large areas of the surface, such vases as may be seen in the splendid series of the Salting Collection or in the Grandidier Collection in the Louvre. They are probably children of the great renaissance which began under the auspices of Ts’ang Ying-hsüan. Dated examples are extremely rare, and consequently the square vase on Plate 104 assumes unusual importance on account of the cyclical date which occurs in the long inscription, “the 29th day of the 9th moon of the _kuei mo_ year,” which we can hardly doubt is 1703. Incidentally another side of this vase illustrates the celebrated scene of the wine cups started from the “orchid arbour to float down the nine-bend river.”[319]

Another example with a cyclical date (the year _hsin mao_, and no doubt 1711) is a globular water bottle “of the highest quality and technique, decorated with transparent luminous enamels of great beauty and delicacy,” in the Pierpont Morgan Collection.[320] But in this case the date is attached to a verse in the field of the decoration, and it may belong to the design rather than to the porcelain.

[Illustration: Plate 104.--Three Examples of K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ Porcelain.

Fig. 1.--Square Vase with scene of floating cups on the river; inscription with cyclical date 1703 A.D.; _shou_ characters on the neck. Height 18⅜ inches. _Hippisley Collection._

Fig. 2.--Lantern with river scenes. Height 13¾ inches. _Dresden Collection._

Fig. 3.--Covered Jar of _rouleau_ shape, peony scrolls in iron red ground, brocade borders. Height 22 inches. _Dresden Collection._]

[Illustration: Plate 105.--Covered Jar painted in _famille verte_ enamels

With brocade ground and panel with an elephant (the symbol of Great Peace). Lion on cover. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). Height 21¼ inches. _Dresden Collection._]

[Illustration: Plate 106.--K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ Porcelain. _Alexander Collection._

Fig. 1.--Dish with rockery, peonies, etc., birds and insects. Diameter 16¼ inches.

Fig. 2.--“Stem Cup” with vine pattern. Height 5¾ inches.]

[Illustration: Plate 107.--_Famille verte_ Porcelain made for export to Europe. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). _British Museum._

Fig. 1.--Vase with “sea monster” (_hai shou_).

Fig. 2.--Dish with basket of flowers. Mark, a leaf. Diameter 11 inches.

Fig. 3.--Covered Jar with _ch’i-lin_ and _fêng-huang_ (phœnix).]

The lateness of this latter date and the use of the word “delicacy” in the description of the piece lead us naturally to that peculiarly refined type of late _famille verte_ in which the ware is of eggshell thinness, the painting extremely dainty and delicate, and the colours rather pale but of perfect purity. Such are the well-known “birthday plates” with the reign mark of K’ang Hsi on the back and the birthday salutation in seal characters on the border: _wan shou wu chiang_--“a myriad longevities without ending!” They are reputed to have been made for the Emperor’s sixtieth birthday which fell in the year 1713, but the story is supported by no evidence of any kind, and they would have been equally appropriate for any Imperial birthday. The character of these wares is more suggestive of the Yung Chêng period, and it is probable that they belong to the extreme limit of the long reign of K’ang Hsi. To this period then we shall assign these and the whole group of kindred porcelains, the plates with designs similar to those of the “birthday plates,” but without the inscribed border, the small eggshell plates with one or two figures painted in the same delicate style, others with a single spray of some flowering shrub almost Japanese in its daintiness, and occasional bowls and vases with decoration of the same character. See Plate 113.

For extreme delicacy of treatment is by no means a feature of the K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ in general, in which the Ming spirit with its boldness and vigour still breathed. It is rather a late development in the decadence of the ware, heralding the more effeminate beauty of the _famille rose_, and were it not for the evidence of the birthday plates I believe many connoisseurs would be tempted to ascribe these delicate porcelains to a much later reign.

Such, however, is the evolution of the _famille verte_ during the sixty years of the K’ang Hsi period, from the strong colours and forceful Ming-like designs of the earlier specimens to the mature perfection of the splendid wares made about 1700, and thence by a process of ultra-refinement to the later types in which breadth of treatment gives place to prettiness and the strong thick enamels to thinner washes of clear, delicate tints. These thin transparent colours continued in use; indeed, they are a feature of a special type of enamelling which will be discussed with the Yung Chêng wares; but the pure _famille verte_ may be said to have come to an end with the last years of the reign of K’ang Hsi. Later reproductions of course exist, for no style of decoration is ever wholly extinct in Chinese art, but they are merely revivals of an old style, which even before the end of the K’ang Hsi period had reached the stage of transition to another family. The opaque enamels of the _famille rose_ palette had already begun to assert themselves. Timid intruders at first--a touch of opaque pink, a little opaque yellow and arsenical white breaking in upon the old harmony of transparent tints--they gradually thrust the _famille verte_ enamels into a subsidiary position, and in the succeeding reigns rose pinks entirely dominate the field.

A word must be said of the use of the _famille verte_ painting in combination with other types of decoration, in the subordinate position of border patterns or more prominently in panel designs. Exquisite effects are obtained by the latter in a ground of coral red, or where a brilliant powder blue field is broken by shapely panels with flowering plants and birds and other familiar vehicles for _famille verte_ colouring. Occasionally we find the enamels actually painted over a powder blue or an ordinary blue glaze, but the combination is more peculiar than attractive; for the underlying colour kills the transparent enamels, and the enamels destroy the lustre of the blue ground. Indeed, it is probable that in many cases these freak decorations were intended to hide a faulty background.

A similar painting over the crackled green _lang yao_ glaze has already been described, and it occurs over the grey white crackles, and rarely but with much distinction, over a pale celadon glaze. But perhaps the most effective combination of this kind is that in which a pale lustrous brown or Nanking yellow is the ground colour. The quiet and refined effects of this union are well exhibited by a small group of vases, bowls, and dishes in the Salting Collection.

Something has already been said of the use of underglaze blue in combination with _famille verte_ enamels. The blue is either an integral part of the general design as in the Wan Li “five colour” scheme, or it forms a distinct decoration by itself, apart from the enamels, though sharing the same surface. The latter use is exemplified by a pair of bottles in the Salting Collection which have blue patterns on the neck and _famille verte_ decoration on the body, consisting of landscape panels surrounded by brocade patterns.[321] But the great drawback to this union of underglaze and overglaze colours is usually apparent. The blue was liable to suffer in the subsequent firings necessitated by the enamels, even though those firings took place at a relatively low temperature. Probably the potter would not expose his finest blue to such risks, but at any rate the blue of this mixed decoration is rarely of first-rate quality.

[Illustration: PLATE 108

Dish painted in underglaze blue and _famille verte_ enamels. In the centre, a five-clawed dragon rising from waves in pursuit of a pearl. Deep border in “Imari” style with cloud-shaped compartments with chrysanthemum and prunus designs in a blue ground, separated by close lotus scrolls reserved in an iron red ground in which are three book symbols. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722)

Diameter 19½ inches. _Alexander Collection._]

There is one group of porcelain which combines the underglaze blue with on-glaze enamels, and which deserves special notice if only because it has been recently favoured with particular attention by collectors. This is what we are pleased to call “Chinese Imari.” Our ceramic nomenclature has never been noted for its accuracy, and like good conservatives we hold firmly to the old names which have been handed down from days when geography was not studied, and from ancestors who were satisfied with old Indian china, or Gombroon ware, as names for Chinese porcelain. So Meissen porcelain is still Dresden, the blue and white of Ching-tê Chên is Old Nanking, Chinese export porcelain painted at Canton with pink roses is Lowestoft, and the ware made at Arita, province of Hizen, in Japan, is Imari, because that is the name of the seaport from which it was shipped. In fact, there are many shops where you cannot make yourself understood in these matters unless you call the wares by the wrong name.

The Arita porcelain in question, this so-called Imari, was made from the middle of the seventeenth century onwards, and it must have competed seriously with the export wares of Ching-tê Chên. At any rate, it was brought to Europe in large consignments by the Dutch traders, who enjoyed the privilege of a trading station on the island of Deshima, after the less politic Portuguese had been driven out of Nagasaki in 1632. For the moment we are specially concerned with two types of Arita ware. The first is distinguished by slight but artistic decoration in vivid enamels of the _famille verte_, supplemented by gilding and occasionally by underglaze blue. Favourite designs are a banded hedge, prunus tree, a Chinese boy and a tiger or phœnix; two quails in millet beside a flowering prunus; simple flowering sprays or branches coiled in circular medallions; or only a few scattered blossoms. Whatever the nature of the design, it was artistically displayed, and in such a manner as to enhance without concealing the fine white porcelain. This is what the old catalogues call the _première qualité coloriée de Japon_, and a very popular ware it was in eighteenth century Europe, when it was closely copied on the early productions of the St. Cloud, Chantilly, Meissen, Chelsea, and other porcelain factories. To-day it is commonly known as Kakiemon ware, because its very distinctive style of decoration is traditionally supposed to have been started by a potter named Kakiemon, who, with another man of Arita, learned the secret of enamelling on porcelain from a Chinese merchant about the year 1646.

The second type was made entirely for the European trade, and it is distinguished by large masses of dark, cloudy blue set off by a soft Indian red (derived from oxide of iron) and gilding. These colours are supplemented by touches of green, yellow, and aubergine enamels, and occasionally by a brownish black. The ware itself is heavy, coarse and greyish, but its rough aspect is well concealed by irregular and confused designs of asymmetrical panels surrounded by mixed brocade patterns. The panels often contain Chinese figures, phœnixes, lions, floral designs of chrysanthemums, peony and prunus, a basket of flowers, rough landscapes or garden views. They are medleys of half-Chinese, half-Japanese motives, a riot of incoherent patterns, but not without broad decorative effect thanks to the bold masses of red, blue and gold. Such is the typical “Old Imari.” There is, however, a finer and more Japanese variety of the same group which is distinguished by free use of the chrysanthemum rosette, and the Imperial kiri (paulonia imperialis), and by panels of diaper pattern and floral designs alternating and counter-changed in colour, the grounds now red, now blue, and now gold. The same colour scheme prevailed in this sub-group, and the dark blue was usually netted over with gold designs.

It was no doubt the success which these wares met in European commerce that induced the Chinese to take a lesson from their pupils, and to adopt the “Imari” style. At any rate, they did copy all these types, sometimes very closely, sometimes only in part. Thus in some cases the actual Japanese patterns as well as the colour scheme are carefully reproduced, in others the Japanese colour scheme is employed on Chinese patterns or vice versa, and, again, there are cases in which passages of Japanese ornament are inserted in purely Chinese surroundings. But whether pure or diluted the Japanese style is unmistakable to those who have once learnt to know its peculiarities, of which masses of blue covered with gilt patterns and the prominence of red and gold are the most conspicuous.

There will, of course, always be a few specimens the nationality of which will be difficult to decide, but to anyone familiar with Chinese and Japanese porcelain the distinction between the Chinese “Imari” and its island prototype is, as a rule, a simple matter. The Chinese porcelain is thinner and crisper, its glaze has the smooth oily sheen and faintly greenish tint which are peculiar to Chinese wares, and the raw edge of the base rim is slightly browned. The Japanese porcelain, on the other hand, is whiter in the Kakiemon ware, greyer and coarser in the “Old Imari,” and the glaze in both cases has the peculiar bubbled and “muslin-like” texture which is a Japanese characteristic. The Japanese underglaze blue is dark and muddy in tone, the Chinese bright, and purer, and the other colours differ, though not perhaps so emphatically. The iron red of the Chinese, for instance, is thinner and usually lighter in tone than the soft Indian red or thick sealing-wax colour of the Japanese; and to those who are deeply versed in Oriental art there is always the more subtle and less definable distinction, the difference between the Chinese and Japanese touch and feeling.

Plate 108 is a fine specimen which shows the blend of Chinese motives and the Japanese colouring.

The general character of the Chinese “Imari” is that of the K’ang Hsi period, to which most of the existing specimens will be assigned; but it is clear that the Chinese continued to use Japanese models in the succeeding reign, for the last three items in the Imperial list of porcelain made in the Yung Chêng period comprise wares “decorated in gold and in silver in the style of the Japanese.”[322]

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