In their ordinary acceptation the terms are not mutually exclusive, and the last three types might be, and indeed are, all expressed in foreign colouring; but presumably the writer refers especially to that kind of “foreign colouring” which was directly based on the Canton enamels and is illustrated in the ruby-back eggshell dishes.
The designs taken from nature would include figure subjects representing personages and interiors, landscapes, growing flowers and fruit, and the like, good examples of which are shown on Plates [126] and [127]. The one represents the “Hundred Flowers,” the vase being, as it were, one great bouquet and the flowers being drawn naturalistically enough to be individually recognised. The other recalls the celebrated picture of the “Hundred Deer” by the late Ming artist, Wên Chêng-ming.[453]
The copies of antiques would comprise bronze patterns and designs borrowed from old porcelain, examples of which are not uncommon. And the brocade patterns, in spite of the low proportion assigned to them in the T’ao shuo, occur in relatively large numbers in Western collections. They mostly consist of flowers or close floral scrolls in colour, and reserved in a monochrome ground of yellow, blue, pink, etc. This is the characteristic Ch’ien Lung scroll work which is used both in borders and over large areas such as the exterior of a bowl or the body of a vase. The reserved pattern, highly coloured and winding through a ground of solid opaque enamel, suggests analogy with the scroll grounds of the contemporary cloisonné enamel; but this incidental likeness has nothing to do with the question of “painting in fa lang style,” which was discussed among T’ang’s innovations. The finer Ch’ien Lung porcelains, and especially those enamelled with brocade designs, are frequently finished off with a coating of opaque bluish green enamel inside the mouth and under the base, a square panel being reserved for the mark. Needless to say, with all this weight of enamelling little or nothing is seen of the porcelain itself, the fine quality of which is only indicated by the neatness of the form and the elegance of the finish.
The green black which was discussed earlier in the chapter is used with striking effect, both in company with famille rose colours (as on Fig. 2 of Plate [131]) and without them. An effective decoration of the latter kind is shown on a beautiful bottle-shaped vase with wide, spreading mouth in the Salting Collection, which is covered with close floral scrolls reserved in a ground of black pigment, the whole surface being washed over with transparent green. The result is a peculiarly soft and rich decoration of green scrolls in a green black ground.
Nor was the iron red—a colour much employed in monochromes at this time—neglected in the painted wares. Indeed, it occurs as the sole pigment on many pieces, and on others it forms a solid brick red or stippled soufflé ground for floral reserves, medallions and panels of famille rose enamelling.
Among the opaque enamels a few shades of blue are similarly used, while the others, as already mentioned, form plain or engraved backgrounds for floral reserves and panel decoration as on Fig. 2 of Plate [125], and on the Peking bowls. The latter are so named not because they were made at Peking, but because the specimens acquired by Western collectors have been chiefly obtained from that source. Many of them have the Ch’ien Lung mark, and their ground colours comprise a variety of pinks, yellow, green, French grey, dark blue, slaty blue, amaranth, lavender, bluish green,[454] delicate greenish white and coral red. The medallions on the bowls—usually four in number—are commonly decorated with growing flowers, such as the flowers of the four seasons in polychrome enamels, while others have figure subjects, frequently European figures in landscape setting and with Chinese attributes, such as a ju-i or ling-chih fungus. The finish of these bowls is extremely fine, and they are well worthy of the Imperial use to which they were mostly destined.
The mention of a delicate greenish white enamel on these medallion bowls reminds us that this colour is used with exquisite effect for borders of floral design, or even for the main decoration of tea and coffee wares; and there is a little plate in the British Museum with Ch’ien Lung mark on which it appears with a peculiar chilled or shrivelled surface as a background for painted designs in iron red.
There is a large class of enamelled porcelain, doubtless made chiefly for export, which found its way into our country houses in the last half of the eighteenth century. It is painted with panels of figure subjects in which rose pink and iron red are uncompromisingly blended, and the space surrounding the panels is filled with composite designs of blue and white with passages of pink scale diaper or feathery gilt scrolls broken by small vignettes in which a bird on a bough, insects, growing plants or fragments of landscape are painted in camaieu pink, red or sepia. In some cases the panels are framed with low, moulded reliefs, which extend into the border spaces, and the groundwork in these parts is powdered with tiny raised dots. The wares include large punch bowls, bottle-shaped ewers with their basins, and sets of five vases, two of which are beakers and three covered jars with lion knobs, ovoid or square, and sometimes of eggshell thinness. Others again have their panels enclosed by wreaths of flowers and foliage or “rat and vine pattern” in full relief, and many of them have a glaze of lumpy, “orange peel” texture. The name “Mandarin” has been given to these wares because the central figure subjects usually contain personages in official dress; and the large punch bowls brought back by the tea-merchants are included in this group, though the mandarin figures in the panels are in this case often replaced by European subjects.
Elaborately moulded and pierced ornament coloured in famille rose enamels often appears on the table ware of this period, a familiar example being the lotus services in which the motive of the pink lotus flower is expressed partly by moulding and partly by painting, the tendrils and buds being utilised for feet and handles; and there are elegant famille rose teapots which have outer casings with panels of prunus, bamboo and pine carved in openwork in the style of the Yi-hsing pottery.
Gilding was, of course, freely employed, and, to a lesser extent, silvering. Elaborate gilt patterns are found covering dark blue, powder blue, lustrous black, bronze green, pale celadon, and iron red monochrome grounds; and the finer enamelled vases and bowls are often finished off with gilt edging, which does not seem to have been much used before this period, though traces of gilding are sometimes seen on the lustrous brown edges of the older plates and bowls.