When the T’ai p’ing rebels had been expelled from the province of Kiangsi by the celebrated viceroy, Li Hung-chang, in 1864, the Imperial factory was rebuilt on the old lines by the new director, Ts’ai Chin-ch’ing. In the same year a list of the porcelain forwarded to the Emperor was drawn up, and it is published in the Chiang hsi t’ung chih[479] immediately after Hsieh Min’s list. It consists mainly of bowls, wine and tea cups, saucer dishes and plates classified as yüan ch’i (round ware), and a few vases under the general heading, cho ch’i; and though there is little originality in the designs, lists of this kind are so rare and so instructive that I have no hesitation in giving it in full below, following Bushell’s[480] renderings in most cases.
Actual examples of T’ung Chih porcelain are not inspiring. Those in the British Museum include a covered bowl with coloured sprays in a ground of red diaper; a bowl with enamelled sprays on a pale brown (tzŭ chin) glaze; a saucer with dragons etched under a transparent green glaze, the exterior in unglazed biscuit painted in black; a cup with red dragons in a ground of black enamel and the cyclical date 1868; a low, octagonal bowl with the Eight Trigrams in relief outside, the interior of this and of the preceding specimen as well being coated with blue green enamel; and a basin enamelled with the Eight Ambassadors of the Tribes of Man. The most favourable specimen of the ware in the same collection is a carefully painted wedding bowl with canary yellow ground and medallions of appropriate symbols, the peach-and dragon-headed staff of longevity, the double fish symbol of conjugal felicity, and the group of pencil brush, cake of ink and ju-i sceptre forming the rebus pi ting ju i, “may things be as you wish.”
List of Imperial Porcelains Supplied in the Third Year of T’ung Chih (1864)
VASES (cho ch’i)
- Quadrangular vases with apricot medallions and two tubular handles with Chün glaze. [For the shape see Plate [123], and for the glaze see p. [1].]
- Vases of the same form with Ko glaze.
- Quadrangular vases with the Eight Trigrams (pa kua), and Ko glaze. [The form is quadrangular body with round neck and foot, moulded in relief with the trigrams; for the Ko glaze see vol. i., p. [71].]
- Vases in form of jade ewers (yü hu ch’un) with chi hung (or copper red) glaze.
- Vases of the same form, with blue and white decoration and raised threads. [Bushell explains that the surface is divided into patterns or sections by raised rings.]
- Vases of the same form, with blue and white decoration with balcony (lan kan). [Bushell explains, “garden scenes enclosed by railings.”]
- Paper-beater (chih ch’ui) vases with the t’ai chi symbol and the glaze of the Imperial factory decorated in colours. [The form is the club-shape or rouleau; and the symbol is apparently the yin-yang, the Confucian symbol for the Absolute.]
- Quadrangular vase with elephant symbol of great peace (t’ai ping yu hsiang, a rebus meaning “augury of great peace”). [These are apparently square vases with two handles in form of elephant (hsiang) heads.]
ROUND WARES (yüan ch’i)
- Medium-sized bowls with dragons in purple brown (tzŭ).
- Medium-sized bowls with chi hung glaze.
- Large bowls (wan) with Indian lotus (hsi lien) in blue.
- Five-inch dishes (p’an), similarly decorated.
- Medium-sized bowls with storks and Eight Trigrams (pa kua).
- Wine cups with narcissus flowers (shui hsien hua) in enamels.
- Wine cups with spreading rim painted with dragons in red.
- Dishes (p’an) a foot in diameter decorated in blue with a pair of dragons filling the surface.
- Soup bowls (t’ang wan) with incised dragons under a dark yellow monochrome glaze. [These, according to Bushell, are smaller and shallower than rice bowls.
- Medium-sized bowls, barrel shaped, with dragons engraved under a yellow monochrome glaze.
- Yellow monochrome tea cups.
- Medium-sized bowls with dragons engraved under a yellow monochrome glaze.
- Medium-sized bowls with the three fruits in groups (pan tzŭ[481]) painted in blue. [The fruits are peach, pomegranate and finger citron.]
- Soup bowls with expanding rim and dragons incised under yellow monochrome glaze.
- Six-inch bowls with a pair of dragons in blue.
- One-foot dishes painted in blue with silkworm scrolls (ts’an wên) and longevity characters.
- Tea cups decorated in blue with mu hsi flowers (a small variety of the olea fragrans).
- Medium-sized bowls with precious lotus in enamel colours.
- Tea cups with white bamboo on a painted red ground.
- Six-inch dishes painted in blue with the “three friends” (san yu) and figure subjects. [The three friends in floral language are the pine, bamboo and prunus. It is also a name given to the group of Confucius, Buddha, and Lao-tzŭ, who are often represented examining a picture scroll or standing in conversation.]
- Tea dishes (ch’a p’an) with a pair of dragons in blue. [Bushell describes these as “little trays with upright borders, of oblong, four-lobed, and fluted outline.” They must in fact have closely resembled the old teapot stands of European services.]
- Six-inch dishes with green dragons on a ground of engraved water-pattern painted in colour.
- One-foot dishes painted in blue with archaic phœnixes (k’uei fêng). [These designs are ornaments of bird form, terminating in scrolls such as appear on ancient bronzes.]
- Nine-inch dishes with blue ground and dragons in clouds painted in yellow.
- Medium-sized bowls with pure white glaze and ruby red (pao shao) phœnix medallions.
- Tea cups with dragons and clouds painted in yellow in a blue ground.
- Six-inch dishes with chi hung (copper red) glaze.
- Medium-sized bowls with chi ch’ing (deep violet blue) glaze.
- Nine-inch dishes with chi hung glaze.
- Soup bowls, barrel shaped, with lustrous brown glaze.
- Medium-sized bowls with red phœnix medallions in a celadon (tung ch’ing) glaze.
- Nine-inch dishes with silkworm scrolls and ju-i[482] ornament in enamel colours.
- Tea cups enamelled in colours with mandarin ducks and lotus flowers.
- Tea bowls (ch’a wan) with chi ch’ing glaze.
- Tea bowls decorated in colours with the pa pao (eight attributes of the Taoist Immortals; see p. [287]).
- Large bowls with the Eight Immortals in blue on red enamelled waves.
- Medium-sized bowls, blue and white inside, and with coloured lotus flowers outside.
- Bowls with the Eight Buddhist symbols of happy augury (pa chi hsiang).
- Porcelain bowls with green designs and peach yellow ground.
- Five-inch dishes with purple and green dragons in a yellow monochrome ground.
- Three-inch platters with similar ornament.
- Soup bowls of the fourth size (ssŭ hao) with green monochrome glaze.
- Five-inch dishes with phœnixes in clouds.
- Medium-sized bowls with dragons and phœnixes among flowers in coloured enamels.
- Four-inch platters (tieh) with purple and green dragons in yellow monochrome ground.
- Nine-inch dishes painted in colours with the eight Buddhist symbols among flowers.
- Large bowls painted in colours with archaic phœnixes (k’uei fêng) among flowers.