With regard to the Ch’ien Lung blue and white, little need be added to what was said of this kind of ware in the last chapter. It was still made in considerable quantity, and T’ang Ying, in his twenty descriptions of the manufacture of porcelain, supplies a commentary to three pictures[449] dealing with the “collection of the blue material,” “the selection of the mineral,” and “the painting of the round ware in blue.” From these we learn that large services were made in blue and white, and the decoration was still rigidly subdivided, one set of painters being reserved for the outlining of the designs and another for filling them in, while the plain blue rings were put on by the workman who finished the ware on the polishing wheel, and the inscriptions, marks and seals were added by skilful calligraphers. The blue material was now obtained in the province of Chêkiang, and close attention was paid to the selection of the best mineral. There was one kind of blue “called onion sprouts, which makes very clearly defined strokes, and does not run in the fire, and this must be used for the most delicate pieces.” This latter colour is to be looked for on the small steatitic porcelains and the fine eggshell cups.
In common with the other Ch’ien Lung types, the blue and white vases are often of archaic bronze form, and decorated with bronze patterns such as borders of stiff leaves, dragon feet and ogre heads. Another favourite ornament is a close pattern of floral scrolls studded with lotus or peony flowers, often finely drawn but inclined to be small and fussy. These scrolls are commonly executed in the blotchy blue described on p. [13], and the darker shades are often thickly heaped up in palpable relief with a marked tendency to run into drops. On the other hand, one sometimes finds the individual brush strokes, as it were, bitten into the porcelain body, and almost suggesting scratched lines. Both peculiarities, the thick fluescent blue and the deep brush strokes, are observable on a small vase of unusually glassy porcelain in the Franks Collection. Two other pieces in the same collection may be quoted. One is a tazza or high-footed bowl with a band of Sanskrit characters and deep borders of close lotus scrolls, very delicately drawn in a soft pure blue, to which a heavily bubbled glaze has given a hazy appearance. This piece (Plate [93], Fig. 1) has the six characters of the Ch’ien Lung seal-mark in a single line inside the foot. The other is a jar which bears the cyclical date corresponding to 1784. Like the last, it has a decoration of Buddhistic import, viz. the four characters
t’ien chu ên po (propitious waves from India), each enclosed by formal cloud devices. It is painted in a soft but rather opaque blue, and the glaze is again of bubbly texture.
Plate 124.—Miscellaneous Porcelain.
Fig. 1.—Magnolia Vase with flambé glaze of crackled lavender with red and blue streaks. Ch’ien Lung period. Height 7 inches. Alexander Collection.
Fig. 2.—Bottle with elephant handles, yellow, purple, green and white glazes on the biscuit. Ch’ien Lung period. Height 8¼ inches. British Museum.
Fig. 3.—Dish with fruit design in lustrous transparent glazes on the biscuit, covering a faintly etched dragon pattern. K’ang Hsi mark. Diameter 9⅞ inches. British Museum.
