The second—and perhaps the more familiar—group of Wan Li wu ts’ai is illustrated by Fig. 1 of Plate [82], on which all the colours, including aubergine, are represented in company with the underglaze blue. There is no longer the same patchy effect, because the blue is more evenly balanced by broader washes of the enamel colours, particularly the greens. The design of this particular example is a figure subject taken from Chinese history (shih wu), supplemented by a brocade band of floral scroll work on the shoulder and formal patterns on the neck and above the base. The former and the latter positions are commonly occupied in these vases by a band of stiff leaves and a border of false gadroons, both alternately blue and coloured. The stiff leaves in this instance are replaced by floral sprays, and the coloured designs are outlined in a red brown pigment. The mark under the base is the “hare,” which has already been noticed on examples of late Ming blue and white.[203] Another late Ming mark, yü t’ang chia ch’i,[204] occurs on a dish in the British Museum, with design of the Eight Immortals paying court to the god of Longevity (pa hsien p’êng shou), painted in the same style but with a predominance of underglaze blue.
PLATE 80
Covered Jar or potiche. Painted in iron red and green enamels, with a family scene in a garden, and brocade borders of ju-i pattern, peony scrolls, etc. Sixteenth century.
Height 17½ inches.
Salting Collection (Victoria and Albert Museum).
But it is not necessary to multiply instances, for the type is well known, and must have survived for a long period. Indeed, many competent authorities assign the bulk of this kind of porcelain to the Yung Chêng period (1723–1735); and it is undoubtedly true that imitations of Wan Li polychrome were made at this time, for they are specifically mentioned in the Yung Chêng list of Imperial wares.[205] But I am inclined to think that the number of these late attributions has been exaggerated, and that they do not take sufficiently into account the interval of forty-two years between the reigns of Wan Li and K’ang Hsi. It was a distracted time when the potters must have depended largely upon their foreign trade in default of Imperial orders, and it is probable that much of this ware, characterised by strong, rather coarse make, greyish glaze and boldly executed decoration in the Wan Li colour scheme, belongs to this intermediate period. The vases usually have the flat unglazed base which characterises the blue and white of this time.[206] Two handsome beakers, with figure subjects and borders of the peach, pomegranate and citron, and a beautiful jar with phœnix beside a rock and flowering shrubs, in the British Museum, seem to belong to this period, but there are numerous other examples, many of which are coarse and crude, and obviously made wholesale for the export trade.
Among the various examples of Wan Li polychrome exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1910, there was one which calls for special mention, a box[207] with panels of floral designs surrounded by fruit and diaper patterns in the usual colours of the wu ts’ai, with the addition of an overglaze blue enamel. It is true that this blue enamel was clearly of an experimental nature and far from successful, but its presence on this marked and indubitable Wan Li specimen is noteworthy. For it has long been an article of faith with collectors that this blue enamel does not antedate the Ch’ing dynasty, being, in fact, a characteristic feature of the K’ang Hsi famille verte porcelain. The rule still remains an excellent one, and this solitary exception only serves to emphasise its general truth, showing as it does that so far the attempts at a blue enamel were a failure. But at the same time the discovery is a warning against a too rigid application of those useful rules of thumb, based on the generalisation from what must, after all, be a limited number of instances.
Marked examples of Wan Li monochromes are rarely seen, but we may assume that the glazes in use in the previous reigns continued to be made—blue, lavender, turquoise, violet and aubergine brown, yellow in various shades, leaf green, emerald green, apple green, celadon, coffee brown, and golden brown—besides the more or less accidental effects in the mottled and flambé glazes. The plain white bowls of the period had a high reputation,[208] and a good specimen in the British Museum, though far from equalling the Yung Lo bowl (Plate [59]), is nevertheless a thing of beauty. The white wares of the Ting type made at this time have been already discussed.[209] The monochrome surfaces were not infrequently relieved by carved or etched designs under the glaze, but it must be confessed that monochromes are exceedingly difficult to date. Particular colours and particular processes continued in use for long periods, and the distinctions between the productions of one reign and the next, or even between those of the late Ming and the early Ch’ing dynasties, are often almost unseizable. At best these differences consist in minute peculiarities of form and potting, in the texture of the body and glaze, and the finish of the base, which are only learnt by close study of actual specimens and by training the eye to the general character of the wares until the perception of the Ming style becomes instinctive. But something further will be said on this subject in the chapter on Ming technique.
