Plate 134.—Porcelain Snuff Bottles. Eighteenth Century. British Museum.
Fig. 1.—Subject from the drama, black ground. Yung Chêng mark. Height 2¾ inches.
Fig. 2.—Battle of demons, underglaze blue and red. Mark, Yung-lo t’ang. Height 3¾ inches.
Fig. 3.—Blue and white “steatitic” ware. Height 2½ inches.
Fig. 4.—Crackled cream white ting glaze, pierced casing with pine, bamboo and prunus. Height 3¼ inches.
Fig. 5.—“Steatitic” ware with Hundred Antiques design in coloured relief. Chia Ch’ing mark. Height 2½ inches.
These scenes from history and romance were favourite subjects with the K’ang Hsi decorators of blue and white and famille verte porcelains. To instance a few types: the scene of the half-legendary Yao with his cavalcade coming to greet the Emperor Shun who is engaged, like the Roman Cincinnatus, in ploughing; the episodes of the three heroes of the Han dynasty, Chang Liang, Ch’ên P’ing and Han Hsin[493]; the heroes of the romantic period of the Three Kingdoms (221–265 A.D.) whose stories may be compared with those of our knights of the Round Table; the stories of brigands in the reign of Hui Tsung of the Sung dynasty.[494] The story of Su Wu, the faithful minister of Han Wu Ti, tending cattle in captivity among the Hiung-nu, is depicted on a bowl in the British Museum, and a dish in the same collection shows an emperor (perhaps Kao Tsu, the first of the T’ang dynasty) surrounded by his captains.
Processional scenes and subjects illustrating the life and customs of the times, peaceful domestic scenes with interiors of house or garden peopled by women and children, are more common in the famille rose period when the warlike tastes of the Manchus had already been softened by a long period of peace. A civil procession and a military procession sometimes balance each other on two vases, the one being the wên p’ing (civil vase), and the other the wu p’ing (military vase). A mock dragon-procession formed by children at play is a not uncommon motive. Indeed playing children (wa wa) have been from the earliest times a subject frequently and most sympathetically depicted on Chinese porcelain. A historical child-scene is that in which the boy Ssŭ-ma Kuang broke the huge fish bowl with a stone to let out the water and save his drowning companion.
There are many motives intended to appeal to the Chinese literatus, and specially suited to ornament the furniture of the writing table. Symposia of literary personages, for instance, make an appropriate design for a brush pot, or again, the meeting of the celebrated coteries, the Seven Worthies of the Bamboo Grove who lived in the third century, and the worthies of the Orchid Pavilion, including the famous calligrapher, Wang Hsi-chih, who met in the fourth century to drink wine, cap verses, and set their cups floating down the “nine-bend river” (see Plate [104], Fig. 1). The Horace of China, Li T’ai-po, the great T’ang poet, is represented in drunken slumber leaning against an overturned wine jar or receiving the ministrations of the Emperor and his court. He also figures among the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, a suitable subject for an octagonal bowl. Poets, painters, and sages are often seen in mountain landscapes contemplating the beauties of Nature; two sages meeting on a mountain side is a frequent subject and is known as the “happy meeting,” or again, it is a single sage, with attendant carrying a bowl, book, and fan, or sometimes bringing an offering of a goose. In rare instances these figures can be identified with Chinese worthies such as Chiang Tzŭ-ya, who sits fishing on a river bank, or Chu Mai-ch’ên, the wood-cutter, reading as he walks with his faggots on his back.