On the other hand the Yung Chêng potters, who excelled in reproducing the antique, were most successful in their imitation of the old Ming blue and whites. The Imperial list[375] includes such items as “reproductions of the pale blue painted designs of Ch’êng Hua,” and of the dark blue of Chia Ching. An interesting example of a Ming reproduction is a bowl in the British Museum, which is painted on the exterior with the old design of ladies walking in a garden by candle light.[376] In spite of its Yung Chêng mark this piece is obviously a copy of a Ming model. The porcelain is white and thick, and the glaze, which is of greenish tint, has a peculiar soft-looking surface, while the blue design inside is of characteristic Ming colour, though that of the exterior is scarcely so successful.
Another type much copied at this period as well as in the succeeding reign is that in which the blue is mottled and blotched with darker spots, a type discussed among the early Ming wares.[377] And similarly such specimens as Fig. 2 of Plate [116], which bears a Hsüan Tê mark, doubtless belong to this period of imitative manufacture. It is of thick, solid build with smooth, soft-looking glaze, whose bubbled texture gives the blue a hazy appearance.
Painting in underglaze red alone, or in combination with underglaze blue, was freely practised in the reign of Yung Chêng, and probably most of the fine examples of this type in our collections belong to this and the succeeding reign (Fig. 1, Plate [117]). There is a good example with the Yung Chêng mark in the British Museum, a vase of “pilgrim-bottle” form with central design of the three emblematic fruits—peach, pomegranate, and finger citron, symbols of the Three Abundances of Years, Sons and Happiness. The fruits are in a soft underglaze red, verging on the peach-bloom tint, and the foliage, together with the borders and accessory designs, are pencilled in dark blue.
The Imperial list alludes to this decoration under the heading of “red in the glaze” (yu li hung), including (1) red used alone for painted designs, and (2) red foliage combined with blue flowers.[378] Examples of both these styles are frequent in large and small objects, and especially in the decoration of snuff bottles, which often bear the Yung Chêng mark. They are, however, by no means confined to the Yung Chêng period, but have continued in uninterrupted use to the present day.
PLATE 115
Vase of baluster form with ornament in white slip and underglaze red and blue in a celadon green ground: rockery and birds on a flowering prunus tree. Yung Chêng period (1723–1735)
Height 15½ inches.
Alexander Collection.
Other references in the list[379] to underglaze red painting include designs of three fishes,[380] three fruits, three funguses, and five bats (for the five blessings) in the Hsüan Tê style, red in a white ground; and the same red designs in a celadon green ground, the latter combination being a novelty of the previous reign. Plate [115] is a choice example of the underglaze colours in a celadon ground; and similar designs in a pale lavender blue ground, besides other combinations of the same colours, coloured slips, and high-fired glazes which form the polychrome decoration of the grand feu have been already discussed on p. [146]. They belong to the Yung Chêng and Ch’ien Lung periods no less than to the K’ang Hsi.