Fig. 4.—Armorial Plate with arms of Leake Okeover. Transition enamels, about 1723. Diameter 8⅞ inches.
Thirdly, there are the reproductions of the enamelled porcelain of the Chêng Tê and Wan Li periods[385] (q.v.), characterised, no doubt, by the combination of underglaze blue and overglaze enamels. We have already seen[386] from the note on Nien yao in the T’ao lu that this combination was conspicuous at this period, and it is probable that much of the “five colour” porcelain in late Ming style should be dated no further back than the Yung Chêng revival. Other types of Ming coloured wares reproduced at this time were “porcelain with ornament in Hsüan Tê style in a yellow ground,”[387] which seems to mean underglaze blue designs with the ground filled in with yellow enamel—a not unfamiliar type—and porcelain with designs painted in iron red (ts’ai hung) “reproduced from old pieces.”[388] But the most prominent feature of the enamelled porcelains of this time is the rapid development of the famille rose colours. We have already noted the first signs of their coming in the thick rose pink and opaque white, which made their appearance in the latter years of K’ang Hsi. The group derives its name from its most conspicuous members, a series of rose pinks graduating from pale rose to deep crimson, all derived from gold, the use of which as a colouring agent for vitreous enamel was only at this period mastered by the Chinese potters. It includes besides a number of other colours distinguished from those of the famille verte palette by their relative opacity. They display, moreover, a far wider range of tints, owing to scientific blending of the various enamels and to the judicious use of the opaque white to modify the positive colours. Most of the opaque colours have considerable body, and stand out on the porcelain like a rich incrustation, and they are laid on not in broad washes, but with careful brush strokes and miniature-like touches.
The famille rose colours are known to the Chinese as juan ts’ai (“soft colours,” as opposed to the ying ts’ai, or hard colours of the famille verte), fên ts’ai (pale colours), or yang ts’ai (foreign colours). Their foreign origin is generally admitted, and T’ang Ying in the seventeenth of his descriptions of the processes of manufacture alludes to them under the heading, “Decorating the round ware and vases with foreign colouring.”[389] Painting the white porcelain in polychrome (wu ts’ai) after the manner of the Europeans (hsi yang), he tells us, is called foreign colouring, and he adds that the colours employed are the same as those used for enamels on metal (fo lang). Taking this statement with the note on “foreign coloured wares” in the Imperial list,[390] where reference is made to painting on enamels (fa lang) “landscapes and figure scenes, flowering plants and birds,” it is evident that fa lang is used here not in the usual sense of cloisonné enamel, but for the painted enamels on copper which we distinguish as Canton enamels. These, we are told elsewhere,[391] were first made in the kingdom of Ku-li, which is washed by the Western sea. Ku-li is identified as Calicut, but it does not necessarily follow that the Chinese associated the origin of the painted enamels with India. The expression was probably used quite vaguely in reference to European goods which came by way of India, and does not really conflict with the other phrase, hsi yang (Western foreigners), which is always rendered “Europeans.”
There is quite a number of references to the foreign or European colours in the Imperial list,[392] e.g. “porcelain in yellow after the European style,” which Bushell considers to be the lemon yellow which originated in this reign; “porcelain in purple brown (tzŭ) after the European style”; “European red-coloured wares,” i.e. rose pink; “European green-coloured wares,” which Bushell explains as pale bluish green or eau de nil enamel; and “European black (wu chin) wares.” In fact the words, “foreign or European,” seem to be practically synonymous with “opaque enamel.”[393]
The most complete display of the foreign colouring is given by a special group of porcelain which is painted in a characteristic and mannered style. It is best known as “eggshell” or “ruby-back” porcelain, from the fact that it is usually very thin and translucent and beautifully potted, and that the exterior of the dishes and plates is often coated with a gold pink enamel varying from pale ruby pink to deep crimson. It usually consists of saucer-shaped dishes, plates, and tea and coffee wares, obviously intended for European use. Occasionally there are vases and lanterns of exquisite lightness and translucency, but the vase forms usually required a more substantial construction, and such specimens as Plate [120], are strongly built, though decorated in the same style as the eggshell wares.
The decoration of these porcelains is scarcely less distinctive than their colouring. The central design usually consists of one of the following: a Chinese interior with figures of ladies and children, groups of vases and furniture, baskets of flowers and dishes of fruit, a pheasant on a rock, two quails and growing flowers, a cock and peonies, etc.; and these designs are enclosed by rich borders, sometimes totalling as many as seven in number, composed of hexagon and square, lozenge, trellis or matting diapers, in varying colours, and broken by small irregular panels of flowers or archaic dragons. There are, of course, many other kinds of decoration on these wares. Sometimes the whole design is executed in opaque blue enamel, sometimes it is black and gold. On some the borders are simpler, merely delicately gilt patterns; on others they are ruby pink, plain or broken by enamelled sprays. On the vase forms the ruby either covers the entire ground or is broken, as in Plate [121], Fig. 3, by fan-shaped or picture-shaped panels with polychrome designs. The painting is, as a rule, very finely and carefully executed, but almost always in a distinctive style which is closely paralleled by the Canton enamels.
Indeed, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that much of this ware was actually decorated in the enamelling establishments at Canton, the porcelain itself being sent in the white from Ching-tê Chên. The same designs are found on both the porcelain and the enamels, and there is one instance at least of an artist whose paintings were used on both materials, as is testified by his signature. This is the painter whose art-name is Pai shih shan jên (hermit of the white rock), or in a shortened form, Pai-shih (see vol. i., p. [223]). He was evidently a Cantonese, for one of his designs on a saucer in the British Museum is inscribed Ling nan hui chê (a Canton picture), the subject being a vase of flowers and a basket of fruit. His signature is also attached to a dish with cock and peonies in the Victoria and Albert Museum,[394] and to a similar design figured by Jacquemart,[395] which also bears the date corresponding to 1724. It occurs, besides, fairly frequently on Canton enamels, though in this case usually attached to landscape designs. In all these instances, however, it is placed in the field of the design appended, as a rule, to a stanza of verse or a descriptive sentence. This is a usual position for the signature of a painter on silk or paper, and we can hardly be wrong in inferring that Pai-shih was the artist whose designs were copied on the wares, perhaps one who was specially employed to design for the enamellers, rather than an actual pot-painter or enameller. The proper place for the signature of the latter is underneath the ware, on the base; and here we find on a cup and saucer in the British Museum the name apparently of the real decorator whose painting is not to be distinguished from that on the piece with the Pai-shih signature, just mentioned as in the same collection. Under the saucer (Plate [119], Fig. 2) is the seal Yü fêng yang lin, i.e. Yang Lin of Yü-fêng, an old name for the town of K’un-shan; and under the cup is the seal Yu chai (quiet pavilion), which is no doubt the studio name of Yang-lin.[396] K’un-shan Hsien is situated between Su-chou and Shanghai, in the province of Kiangsu, and we are to understand that Yang-lin was either a native of K’un-shan or that he resided there—more probably the former, for his work is typical of the Canton enamellers. It is, however, probable enough that there were decorating establishments working for the European markets in the neighbourhood of Shanghai as well as at Canton, just as there are still decorating kilns not only at Ching-tê Chên but “at the other towns on the river.”[397]
It is highly probable that the brushwork of the Canton enamellers, like the enamels themselves, was copied at Ching-tê Chên, and even that some of the enamellers migrated thither. A tankard among the armorial porcelain in the British Museum, bearing the arms of Yorke and Cocks, combines a few touches of underglaze blue with passages of famille rose decoration in the Canton style. The blue can only have been applied at the place of manufacture, and as no porcelain of this kind was actually made at Canton, it is evident that the piece was made and decorated elsewhere (which can only mean at Ching-tê Chên), unless we assume the improbable alternative that the tankard travelled from the factory, bare save for a faintly outlined shield with a saltire in blue, to be finished off at Canton.
Needless to say there is much famille rose porcelain in which the Cantonese style is not apparent, and this we assume without hesitation to have been decorated at Ching-tê Chên.
It only remains to say a few words on the dating of the famille rose wares and for this we must return to the ruby-back porcelains. Dated pieces are rare, but the British Museum is fortunate in possessing a few documentary specimens. The most interesting of these is a bowl with pale ruby enamel covering the exterior, and a dainty spray of flowers in famille rose enamels inside. It is marked in blue under the glaze with the cyclical date “made in the hsin chou year recurring” (see p. [213]). The only year to which this can be referred is 1721, when the hsin chou year came round for the second time in the long reign of K’ang Hsi.[398] It is of course possible that this bowl was not enamelled in the year of its manufacture, but there are two other pieces in the same case, an octagonal plate with ruby border and a dish, both with the mark of the Dresden collection, and therefore not later than the early years of Yung Chêng. A fourth document is a ruby-back saucer dish delicately painted with a lady and boys, vases and furniture in typical style, which has the mark of the Yung Chêng period.