The brief reign of Yung Chêng was followed by that of his son, who ruled under the title of Ch’ien Lung for a full cycle of sixty years, at the end of which he abdicated in accordance with his vow that he would not outreign his grandfather, K’ang Hsi. Ch’ien Lung was a devotee of the arts, and they flourished greatly under his long and peaceful sway. He was himself a collector, and the catalogue of the Imperial bronzes compiled under his orders is a classic work; but more than that, he was personally skilful in the art of calligraphy, which ranks in China as high as painting; and he was a voluminous poet. It is no uncommon thing to find his compositions engraved or painted on porcelain and other artistic materials. Bushell[429] quotes an example from a snuff bottle in the Walters Collection; there is a bowl for washing wine cups in the Eumorfopoulos Collection with a descriptive verse engraved underneath, and entitled, “Imperial Poem of Ch’ien Lung”; and a beautiful coral red bowl in the British Museum has a similar effusion pencilled in gold in the interior.

His interest in the ceramic art is further proved by the command given in 1743 to T’ang Ying to compose a description of the various processes of manufacture as a commentary on twenty pictures of the industry which belonged to the palace collections; and one of the earliest acts of his reign was to appoint the same celebrated ceramist in 1736 to succeed Nien Hsi-yao in the control of the customs at Huai-an Fu, a post which involved the supreme control of the Imperial porcelain manufacture.

There is little doubt that T’ang Ying[430] was the most distinguished of all the men who held this post. He is, at any rate, the one whose achievements have been most fully recorded. He was himself a prolific writer, and a volume of his collected works has been published with a preface by Li Chü-lai. His autobiography is incorporated in the Chiang hsi t’ung chih; his twenty descriptions of the processes of porcelain manufacture are quoted in the T’ao shuo and the T’ao lu, and in themselves form a valuable treatise on Chinese porcelain; and before taking up his post at Huai-an Fu in 1736 he collected together, for the benefit of his successors at Ching-tê Chên, the accumulated notes and memoranda of eight years. This last work is known as the T’ao ch’êng shih yu kao (“Draughts of Instructions on the Manufacture of Porcelain”), and the preface[431] quoted in the Annals of Fou-liang furnishes some interesting details concerning Tang’s labours. We learn, for instance, that when he was appointed to the factory at Ching-tê Chên in 1728, he was “unacquainted with the finer details of the porcelain manufacture in the province of Kiangsi,” having never been there before. He worked with heart and strength, however, sleeping and eating with the workmen during a voluntary apprenticeship of three years, until in 1731 “he had conquered his ignorance of the materials and processes of firing, and although he could not claim familiarity with all the laws of transformation, his knowledge was much increased.”

The commissionership of the customs was transferred in 1739 from Huai-an Fu to Kiu-kiang, which is close to the point of junction between the Po-yang Lake and the Yangtze, and considerably nearer to the Imperial factory at Ching-tê Chên, the control of which remained in T’ang’s hands until 1749.

The Ching-tê Chên T’ao lu[432] is almost verbose on the subject of T’ang’s achievements. He had a profound knowledge, it tells us, of the properties of the different kinds of clay and of the action of the fire upon them, and he took every care in the selection of proper materials, so that his wares were all exquisite, lustrous, and of perfect purity. In imitating the celebrated wares of antiquity he never failed to make an exact copy, and in the imitation of all sorts of famous glazes there were none which he could not cleverly reproduce. There was, in fact, nothing that he could not successfully accomplish. Furthermore, his novelties[433] included porcelains with the following glazes and colours: foreign purple (yang tzŭ), cloisonné blue (fa ch’ing), silvering (mo yin), painting in ink black (ts’ai shui mo), foreign black (yang wu chin), painting in the style of the enamels on copper (fa lang), foreign colouring in a black ground (yang ts’ai wu chin), white designs in a black ground (hei ti pai hua), gilding on a black ground (hei ti miao chin), sky blue (t’ien lan), and transmutation glazes (yao pien). The clay used was white, rich (jang) and refined, and the body of the porcelain, whether thick or thin, was always unctuous (ni). The Imperial wares attained their greatest perfection at this time.

The preface to T’ang’s collected works, which is quoted in the same passage, singles out as special triumphs of his genius the revival of the manufacture of the old dragon fish bowls (lung kang) and of the Chün yao, and the production of the turquoise and rose (mei kuei) colours in “new tints and rare beauty.” It is obvious from these passages that T’ang was responsible for many of the types enumerated in Hsieh Min’s list in the preceding chapter, not only among the reproductions of antiques but among the new inventions of the period, such as the cloisonné blue, foreign purple, silvering, painting in ink black, and foreign black. It follows, then, that these novelties could not have been made much before 1730, for T’ang was still at that time occupied chiefly with learning the potter’s art. It is equally certain that he continued to make a specialty of imitating the older wares during the reign of Ch’ien Lung, so that we may regard the best period of these reproductions as extending from 1730–1750.

In reading the list of T’ang’s innovations the reader will perhaps be puzzled by the varieties of black decoration which are included. Before attempting to explain them it will be best to review the different kinds of black found on Chinese porcelain of the Ch’ing dynasty. There is the high-fired black glaze, with hard shining surface likened to that of a mirror and usually enriched with gilt traceries. This is the original wu chin described by Père d’Entrecolles.[434] The other blacks are all low-fired colours of the muffle kiln applied over the glaze and ranking with the enamel colours. They include at least five varieties: (1) The dry black pigment, derived from cobaltiferous ore of manganese, applied like the iron red without any glassy flux. (2) The same pigment washed over with a transparent green enamel. This is the iridescent greenish black of the famille verte, and it continued in use along with the famille rose colours in the Yung Chêng and Ch’ien Lung periods and onwards to modern times. (3) A black enamel in which the same elements—manganese black and copper green—are compounded together. This is the modern wu chin, of which a sample in the Sèvres Museum (from the collection of M. Itier) was described by Julien[435] as “noir mat; minerai de manganese cobaltifère et oxyde de cuivre avec céruse.” It appears on modern Chinese porcelain as a sticky greenish black enamel, inferior in depth and softness to the old composite black of the famille verte; but for all that, this is the yang wu chin (foreign black) of the Yung Chêng and Ch’ien Lung periods. In the days of T’ang Ying it was a far superior colour. (4) A mottled greenish black occurs as a monochrome and as a ground colour with reserved discs enamelled with famille rose colours on the exterior of two bowls in the British Museum, both of which have the cyclical date, wu ch’ên, under the base, indicating the year 1748 or 1808, probably the latter. (5) An enamel of similar texture but of a purplish black colour is used on a snuff bottle in the same collection to surround a figure design in underglaze blue. This piece has the Yung Chêng mark in red, but from its general character appears to be of later date.

In the list of T’ang’s innovations there is yang wu chin (foreign black), which is doubtless the same as the hsi yang wu chin (European black) of Hsieh Min’s list. It is clear that this is something different from the old green black of the famille verte porcelain, and we can hardly be wrong in identifying it with the wu chin enamel described above in No. 3. Compared with the original mirror black wu chin glaze this enamel has a dull surface, and we can only infer that the term wu chin had already lost its special sense of metallic black, and was now used merely as a general term for black.

Assuming this inference to be correct, the term yang ts’ai wu chin (foreign painting in a black ground) should mean simply famille rose colours surrounded by a black enamel ground of the type of either No. 2 or No. 3. It is, of course, possible that the wu chin here is the old mirror black glaze on which enamelling in famille rose colours would be perfectly feasible; but I do not know of any example, whereas there is no lack of choice porcelains answering to the alternative description.

The two remaining types, hei ti pai hua (white decoration in a black ground) and hei ti miao chin (black ground gilt), apparently leave the nature of the black undefined, but as the expressions appear verbatim in the note attached to No. 52 of Hsieh Min’s list, which is “reproductions of wu chin glaze,” we must regard the black in this case, too, as of the wu chin type. The black ground with gilding can hardly refer to anything but the well-known mirror black glaze with gilt designs; and the white designs in black ground is equally clearly identified with a somewhat rarer type of porcelain in which the pattern is reserved in white in a ground of black enamel of the type of No. 3. There are two snuff bottles in the British Museum respectively decorated with “rat and vine,” and figure subjects white with slight black shading and reserved in a sticky black enamel ground. Both these are of the Tao Kuang period, but there are earlier and larger examples elsewhere with a black ground of finer quality. Such a decoration is scarcely possible with anything but an enamel black, and though there is some inconsistency in the grouping of an enamel and a glaze together in Hsieh Min’s list, they were apparently both regarded as “reproductions” of the old mirror black wu chin.

Out of the remaining innovations ascribed to T’ang’s directorate, the fa ch’ing (cloisonné or enamel blue) and the fa long hua fa (painting in the style of the enamels on copper) have already been described in connection with Hsieh Min’s list. The latter expression occurs verbatim in the note attached in the Annals of Fou-liang[436] to No. 49 of the list, which is “porcelain with foreign colouring,” and it clearly refers to the free painting on the Canton enamels for reasons already given.[437] It is true that fa lang (like fo lang, fu lang, and fa lan, all phrases suggestive of foreign and Western origin) is commonly used in reference to cloisonné enamel, but the idea of copying on porcelain “landscapes, figure subjects, flowering plants, and birds” from cloisonné enamels is preposterous to anyone who is familiar with the cramped and restricted nature of work bounded by cloisons. It is a pity that Bushell has confused the issue by rendering this particular passage “painting in the style of cloisonné enamel” in his Oriental Ceramic Art.[438]

But, it will be objected, the painting in foreign colours has been already shown to have been in full swing some years before T’ang’s appointment at Ching-tê Chên. The inconsistency is only apparent, however, for it is only claimed that T’ang introduced this style of painting on the Imperial porcelain, and it may—and indeed must—have been practised in the enamelling establishments at Canton and elsewhere for some time before. Indeed, when one comes to consider the list of T’ang innovations which we have discussed so far, they are mainly concerned with the adaptation of various foreign colours and of processes already in use in the previous reign.

Of those which remain, the t’ien lan or sky blue may perhaps be identified with a light blue verging on the tint of turquoise, a high-fired glaze found occasionally in the Ch’ien Lung monochromes. But probably the greatest of T’ang’s achievements was the mastery of the yao pien or furnace transmutation glazes, which were a matter of chance as late as the end of the K’ang Hsi period. These are the variegated or flambé glazes in which a deep red of sang de bœuf tint is transformed into a mass of streaks and mottlings in which blue, grey, crimson, brown and green seem to be struggling together for pre-eminence. All these tints spring from one colouring agent—copper oxide—and they are called into being by a sudden change of the atmosphere of the kiln, caused by the admission of wood smoke at the critical moment and the consequent consumption of the oxygen. Without the transformation the glaze would be a sang de bœuf red, and in many cases the change is only partial, and large areas of the deep red remain. Fig. 1 of Plate 123 illustrates a small but characteristic specimen of the Ch’ien Lung flambé. It will be found that in contrast with the K’ang Hsi sang de bœuf these later glazes are more fluescent, and the excess of glaze overrunning the base has been removed by grinding.

Another development of the yao pien at this time is the use of a separate “transmutation” glaze which could be added in large or small patches over another glaze, and which assumed, when fired, the usual flambé appearance. When judiciously applied the effect of this superadded flambé was very effective, but it is often used in a capricious fashion, with results rather curious than beautiful. There are, for instance, examples of blue and white vases being wholly or partially coated with flambé, which have little interest except as evidence that the potters could now produce the variegated effect at will and in more ways than one.

The use of double glazes to produce new and curious effects is characteristic of the period. The second glaze was applied in various ways by blowing, flecking, or painting it over the first. The Chün glaze of the muffle kiln belongs to this type if it has, as I think, been correctly identified with the blue green dappled with crimson on Fig. 4 of Plate 128; and the bird’s egg glazes mentioned on p. 217 belong to the same class.[439] Others of a similar appearance, though not necessarily of the same technique, are the tea dust (ch’a yeh mo) and iron rust (t’ieh hsiu).

The tea dust glaze has a scum of dull tea green specks over an ochreous brown or bronze green glaze, applied either to the biscuit or over an ordinary white glazed porcelain; and it seems to have been a speciality of the Ch’ien Lung period, though there are known specimens with the Yung Chêng mark and many fine examples were made in later reigns. But neither this glaze nor double glazes in general are inventions of this time. It would be more correct to speak of them as revivals, for the early Japanese tea jars, which are based on Chinese originals, illustrate the principle of the double glaze, and there are specimens of stoneware as old as the Sung if not the T’ang dynasty, with dark olive glaze flecked with tea green, and scarcely distinguishable from the Ch’ien Lung tea dust. It is stated on the authority of M. Billequin (see Bushell, O. C. A., p. 518) that a “sumptuary law was made restricting the use of the tea dust glaze to the Emperor, to evade which collectors used to paint their specimens with imaginary cracks,[440] and even to put in actual rivets to make them appear broken.”

The iron rust is a dark lustrous brown glaze strewn with metallic specks (due to excess of iron), and in the best examples clouded with passages of deep red. But these are only two examples of skill displayed by the Ch’ien Lung potters in imitating artistic effects in other materials. Special success was attained in reproducing the many tints of old bronze and its metallic surface. Bright-coloured patina was suggested by touches of flambé, and the effects of gilding or gold and silver inlay were rendered by the gilder’s brush. The appearance of inlaid enamels was skilfully copied. “In fact,” to quote from the T’ao shuo,[441] “among all the works of art in carved gold, embossed silver, chiselled stone, lacquer, mother-of-pearl, bamboo and wood, gourd and shell, there is not one that is not now[442] produced in porcelain, a perfect copy of the original piece.” Nor is this statement much exaggerated, for I have seen numerous examples in which grained wood, red lacquer, green jade, bronze, and even mille fiori glass have been so closely copied that their real nature was not detected without close inspection.

Reverting to T’ang’s achievements, we find special mention made of the reproductions of Chün yao which have been already discussed in detail,[443] and of the revived manufacture of the large dragon fish bowls. The latter are the great bowls which caused such distress among the potters in the Wan Li period. They are described in the T’ao lu[444] as being fired in specially constructed kilns, and requiring no less than nineteen days to complete their baking. The largest size is said to have measured 6 ft.[445] in height, with a thickness of 5 in. in the wall, one of them occupying an entire kiln. The old Ming dragon bowl found by T’ang Ying[446] at the factory was one of the smaller sizes, and measured 3 ft. in diameter and 2 ft. in height. They were intended for the palace gardens for keeping gold-fish or growing water-lilies, and the usual decoration consisted of Imperial dragons. They are variously described as lung kang (dragon bowls), yü kang (fish bowls), and ta kang (great bowls).

Owing to the tremendous difficulty of firing these huge vessels the order for their supply in the reign of Shun Chih was eventually cancelled, and no attempt was made to resume their manufacture until T’ang’s directorate. The usual fish bowl of the K’ang Hsi period is a much smaller object, measuring about 20 in. (English) in diameter by 1 ft. in height; but from the note appended to Hsieh Min’s list in the Chiang hsi t’ung chih on the Imperial ta kang, it appears that already (about 1730) the manufacture had been resumed on the old scale,[447] for the dimensions of those described are given as from 3 ft. 4 or 5 in. to 4 ft. in diameter at the mouth, and from 1 ft. 7 or 8 in. to 2 ft. in height. An example of intermediate size is given on Plate 133, one of a pair in the Burdett-Coutts Collection measuring 26½ in. in diameter by 20 in. in height.

It remains to notice two glaze colours to which T’ang Ying appears to have paid special attention: the fei ts’ui (turquoise) and the mei kuei (rose colour). The former has already been dealt with in connection with Ming, K’ang Hsi, and Yung Chêng porcelain, and it is only necessary to add that it occurs in singularly beautiful quality on the Ch’ien Lung porcelains, often on vases of antique bronze form, but fashioned with the unmistakable “slickness” of the Ch’ien Lung imitations. Occasionally this glaze covers a body of reddish colour due to admixture of some coarser clay, which seems to have assisted the development of the colour, and it is worthy of note that there are modern imitations on an earthen body made at the tile works near Peking which, thanks to the fine quality of their colour, are liable to be passed off as old. I have noticed that Ch’ien Lung monochrome vases—especially those which have colours of the demi-grand feu like the turquoise—are often unglazed under the base. The foot is very deeply cut, and the biscuit is bare or skinned over with a mere film of vitreous matter, which seems to be an accidental deposit.

The mei kuei is the colour of the red rose (mei kuei hua), and it is obviously to be identified with the rose carmines derived from gold which were discussed in the last chapter. These tints are found in considerable variety in the early Ch’ien Lung porcelains, from deep crimson and scarlet or rouge red to pale pink, and they are used as monochromes, ground colours, and in painted decoration. A superb example of their use as ground colour was illustrated on the border of Plate 120, which is probably a Yung Chêng piece. Among the gold red monochromes of the the Ch’ien Lung period one of the most striking is a dark ruby pink with uneven surface of the “orange peel” type. Mr. S. E. Kennedy has a remarkable series of these monochromes in his collection.

Speaking generally, the Ch’ien Lung monochromes repeat the types in vogue in the previous reigns of the dynasty with greater or less success. Among the greens, the opaque, crackled glazes of pea, apple, sage, emerald, and camellia leaf tints described on p. 187 were a speciality of the time, and the snake-skin and cucumber tints were also made with success. There were, besides, beautiful celadon glazes of the grand feu, and an opaque enamel of pale bluish green eau de nil tint. Underglaze copper red was used both for monochromes and painted wares, but with the exception of the liver or maroon colour the former had not the distinction of the K’ang Hsi sang de bœuf or the Yung Chêng soufflé red. There is a jug-shaped ewer with pointed spout in the British Museum which has a fluescent glaze of light liver red deepening into crimson, and known in Japan as toko. It has the Hsüan Tê mark, but I have seen exactly similar specimens with the mark of Ch’ien Lung, to which period this colour evidently belongs. On the other hand, great improvement is observable in the overglaze coral red monochrome derived from iron, whether it be the thin lustrous film of the mo hung or the richly fluxed “jujube” red which attains the depth and fullness of glaze. Fig. 3, Plate 123, is a worthy example of the iron red monochrome of the period. As a thick, even and opaque colour this enamel was used in small pieces which wonderfully simulate the appearance of red cinnabar lacquer.

An endless variety of blue glazes were used, the pure blue in dark and light shades, soufflé or plain, the purplish blues and violets, the lavenders and clair de lunes. These are mainly high-fired glazes, but a favourite blue of this period is a deep purplish blue of soft, fluescent appearance and minutely crackled texture which is evidently a glaze of the demi-grand feu. The “temple of heaven” blue is of this nature, though of a purer and more sapphire tint. It is the colour of the ritual vessels used in the worship of heaven and of the tiles with which the temple was roofed. Another variety of this glaze has the same tint, but is harder and of a bubbly, pinholed texture, apparently a high-fired colour. The t’ien ch’ing (sky blue) has already been mentioned—a lighter colour between lavender and turquoise. And among the blue enamels which were sometimes used as monochromes at this time is an opaque deep blue of intense lapis lazuli tone.

Among the yellows, in addition to the transparent glazes of the older type, there are opaque enamels, including the lemon yellow with rough granular texture, the waxen[448] sulphur yellow which often displays lustrous patches, and the crackled mustard yellow.

Among the purples and browns there are few changes to note, though much of the greenish brown crackle probably belongs to this time; and there is little to be said about the white wares except that both the true porcelain, whether eggshell or otherwise, and the opaque crackled wares of the Ting yao type were still made with exquisite refinement and finish. The uneven glaze surface, happily compared to “orange peel,” was much affected on the Ch’ien Lung whites in common with many other wares of the time. But there were many new enamel monochromes formed by blending the famille rose colours, shades of opaque pink, lavender, French grey, and green, which are sometimes delicately engraved with close scroll patterns all over the surface, a type which is known by the clumsy name of graviata. These enamel grounds are often interrupted by medallions with underglaze blue or enamelled designs, as on the vase illustrated in Plate 125, Fig. 4, and on the so-called Peking bowls; or, again, they are broken by reserved floral designs which are daintily coloured in famille rose enamels. But we are already drifting from the monochromes into the painted porcelains of the period, and we shall return to the Peking bowls presently.

With regard to the Ch’ien Lung blue and white, little need be added to what was said of this kind of ware in the last chapter. It was still made in considerable quantity, and T’ang Ying, in his twenty descriptions of the manufacture of porcelain, supplies a commentary to three pictures[449] dealing with the “collection of the blue material,” “the selection of the mineral,” and “the painting of the round ware in blue.” From these we learn that large services were made in blue and white, and the decoration was still rigidly subdivided, one set of painters being reserved for the outlining of the designs and another for filling them in, while the plain blue rings were put on by the workman who finished the ware on the polishing wheel, and the inscriptions, marks and seals were added by skilful calligraphers. The blue material was now obtained in the province of Chêkiang, and close attention was paid to the selection of the best mineral. There was one kind of blue “called onion sprouts, which makes very clearly defined strokes, and does not run in the fire, and this must be used for the most delicate pieces.” This latter colour is to be looked for on the small steatitic porcelains and the fine eggshell cups.

In common with the other Ch’ien Lung types, the blue and white vases are often of archaic bronze form, and decorated with bronze patterns such as borders of stiff leaves, dragon feet and ogre heads. Another favourite ornament is a close pattern of floral scrolls studded with lotus or peony flowers, often finely drawn but inclined to be small and fussy. These scrolls are commonly executed in the blotchy blue described on p. 13, and the darker shades are often thickly heaped up in palpable relief with a marked tendency to run into drops. On the other hand, one sometimes finds the individual brush strokes, as it were, bitten into the porcelain body, and almost suggesting scratched lines. Both peculiarities, the thick fluescent blue and the deep brush strokes, are observable on a small vase of unusually glassy porcelain in the Franks Collection. Two other pieces in the same collection may be quoted. One is a tazza or high-footed bowl with a band of Sanskrit characters and deep borders of close lotus scrolls, very delicately drawn in a soft pure blue, to which a heavily bubbled glaze has given a hazy appearance. This piece (Plate 93, Fig. 1) has the six characters of the Ch’ien Lung seal-mark in a single line inside the foot. The other is a jar which bears the cyclical date corresponding to 1784. Like the last, it has a decoration of Buddhistic import, viz. the four characters t’ien chu ên po (propitious waves from India), each enclosed by formal cloud devices. It is painted in a soft but rather opaque blue, and the glaze is again of bubbly texture.

In the commoner types of Ch’ien Lung blue and white, the blue is usually of a dullish indigo tint, wanting in life and fire. There is, in fact, none of the character of the K’ang Hsi ware; the broad washes, the clear trembling sapphire, and the subtle harmony existing between the glaze and blue, are all missing. Moreover, the decoration, with its careful brushwork and neat finish, has none of the freedom and breadth of the older types. On the whole, it is small wonder that the collector finds little to arouse enthusiasm in the blue and white of this period, if we except the steatitic[450] or “soft pastes,” which are eagerly acquired.

Underglaze red painting, and the same in combination with blue or with high-fired glazes and coloured slips, celadon, white, golden brown, olive brown and coffee brown, were perpetuated from the previous reigns; and underglaze blue designs are found accompanied by yellow or coral red enamel grounds in old Ming style, and even by famille rose painting.

Decoration in transparent glazes of three colours—green, yellow and aubergine—applied direct to the biscuit is not common on Ch’ien Lung porcelain, but when used it displays the characteristic neatness and finish of the period. I suspect that many of the trim rice bowls with neatly everted mouth rim and dragon designs etched in outline and filled in with aubergine in a green ground, yellow in an aubergine, or the other combinations of the three colours, belong to this reign, in spite of the K’ang Hsi mark under the base. At any rate, the body, glaze and form can be exactly paralleled in other bowls which have a Ch’ien Lung mark.

This criticism applies equally to a striking group of porcelain of which Fig. 3 of Plate 124 is an example. It consists of bowls and dishes, so much alike in decoration that one might suppose all existing examples to be parts of some large service. The body is delicately engraved with five-clawed dragons pursuing pearls, and somewhat inconsequently over these are painted large and boldly designed flowering sprays (rose, peony, etc.) or fruiting pomegranate branches with black outlines filled in with fine, transparent aubergine, full yellow and green in light and dark shades. The remaining ground space is coated with the thin greenish wash which does duty for white in this colour scheme, but in these particular pieces it is unusually lustrous and iridescent. In fact, on the back of a dish in the British Museum it has developed patches of golden lustre of quite a metallic appearance and similar to those noted on the sulphur yellow monochrome described on p. 239. This lustrous appearance, however, is probably no more than an exaggerated iridescence, for there is no reason to suppose that the Chinese ever used metallic lustre of the Persian or European kind.[451] This group of porcelain always bears the K’ang Hsi mark, but a comparison with the bowls of later date, both in material and in the general finish of the ware and the style of the colouring, irresistibly argues a later period of manufacture, unless, indeed, we admit that the Imperial bowls of the late K’ang Hsi and the Ch’ien Lung periods are not to be differentiated. The finish of these wares, in fact, compares more closely with that of the finer Tao Kuang bowls than with the recognised types of K’ang Hsi porcelain.

Another kind of on-biscuit decoration of the Ch’ien Lung—and perhaps the Yung Chêng—period is best described from a concrete example, viz., Fig. 2 of Plate 124, a pear-shaped bottle in the British Museum with sides moulded in shallow lobes, an overlapping frill or collar with scalloped outline on the neck, and above this two handles in shape of elephants’ heads. The ground colour is a deep brownish yellow relieved by borders of stiff leaves with incised outline filled in with smooth emerald green; and the collar and handles are white with cloud scroll borders of pale aubergine edged with blue. The general colouring, as well as the form of this vase, is closely paralleled in fine pottery of the same period.

It may be added that famille rose enamels are sometimes used in on-biscuit polychrome decoration, but the effect is not specially pleasing. Some of the opaque colours serving as monochromes are also applied in this way, but here the absence of a white glaze beneath is scarcely noticeable, owing to the thickness and opacity of the enamels.

But all the other forms of polychrome decoration at this period must yield (numerically, at any rate) to the on-glaze painting in famille rose enamels, or, as the Chinese have named them, “foreign colours.” The nature of these has been fully discussed, but there is no doubt that their application was widely extended in the Ch’ien Lung period, and one point of difference, at least, is observable in their technique, viz. the mixing of the tints in the actual design so as to produce the European effect of shading. By this means the graded tints in the petals of a flower, and the stratified surface of rocks and mountains, are suggestively rendered.

It would be impossible to enumerate the endless varieties of design employed in this large group. Contrasting the decoration of his own time with that of the Ming porcelain, the author of the T’ao shuo,[452] which was published in 1774, says: “Porcelain painted in colours excelled in the Ming dynasty, the majority of the patterns being derived from embroidery and brocaded satins, three or four only out of each ten being from nature and copies of antiques. In modern porcelain, out of ten designs you will get four of foreign colouring, three taken from nature, two copies of antiques, one from embroidery or satin brocade.”

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.

The manual dexterity of the Ch’ien Lung potters is shown in openwork carving and pierced designs on lanterns, perfume boxes, insect cages, spill vases, etc., but more especially on the amazing vases with free-working belts, revolving necks, or decorated inner linings which can be turned round behind a pierced outer casing, chains with movable links, and similar tours de force.

There are, beside, two types of ornament dating from this period which demand no little manual skill. These are the lacework and rice grain. In the former the design is deeply incised in the body and the whole covered with a pale celadon green glaze, and it is usually applied to small vases and tazza-shaped cups, the pattern consisting of close and intricate Ch’ien Lung scrollwork. The resultant effect is of a very delicate green lace pattern, which appears as a partial transparency when held to the light (Plate 128, Fig. 2). The rice-grain ornament carries the same idea a step farther, for the incised pattern is cut right through the body, leaving small perforations to be filled up by the transparent glaze. Only small incisions could be made, and these generally took the lenticular form which the French have likened to grains of rice (Plate 128, Fig. 1). The patterns made in this fashion are naturally limited. Star-shaped designs or flowers with radiating petals are the commonest, though occasionally the transparencies are made to conform to the lines of painted decoration and even of dragon patterns.

Both ordinary and steatitic porcelain are used for this treatment; and the ware is either plain white or embellished with underglaze blue borders and designs, and occasionally with enamels. The effect is light and graceful, especially when transmitted light gives proper play to the transparencies.

As to the antiquity of this decoration in China, I can find no evidence of its existence before the eighteenth century, and I am inclined to think it was even then a late development. There are two cups in the Hippisley Collection with apocryphal Hsüan Tê dates, but the majority of marked examples are Ch’ien Lung or later. Out of fourteen pieces in the Franks Collection five have the Ch’ien Lung mark, two have palace marks of the Tao Kuang period,[455] and one has a long inscription stating that it was made by Wang Shêng-Kao in the fourth month of 1798.[456] The rest are unmarked. The manufacture continues to the present day, and the same process has been freely used in Japan, where it is called hotaru-de, or firefly decoration. In this type of ornament the Chinese were long forestalled by the potters of Western Asia, for the rice-grain transparencies were used with exquisite effect in Persia and Syria in the twelfth century if not considerably earlier.

It remains to mention a species of decoration which is not strictly ceramic. It consists of coating the porcelain biscuit with black lacquer in which are inlaid designs in mother-of-pearl, the lac burgauté of the French (Plate 128, Fig. 3). This porcelain is known by the French name of porcelaine laquée burgautée, and it seems to have been originally a product of the Ch’ien Lung period; at any rate, I can find no evidence of its existence before the eighteenth century.

In the Ch’ien Lung period Chinese porcelain reaches the high-water mark of technical perfection. The mastery of the material is complete. But for all that the art is already in its decline. By the middle of the reign it is already overripe, and towards the end it shows sure signs of decay. At its best the decoration is more ingenious than original, and more pretty than artistic. At its worst it is cloying and tiresome. The ware itself is perfectly refined and pure, but colder than the K’ang Hsi porcelain. The famille rose painting is unequalled at its best for daintiness and finish, but the broken tints and miniature touches cannot compare in decorative value with the stronger and broader effects of the Ming and K’ang Hsi brushwork. The potting is almost perfect, but the forms are wanting in spontaneity; and the endless imitation of bronze shapes becomes wearisome, partly because the intricate forms of cast metal are not naturally suited to the ceramic material, and partly because the elaborate finish of the Ch’ien Lung wares makes the imitation of the antique unconvincing. In detail the wares are marvels of neatness and finish, but the general impression is of an artificial elegance from which the eye gladly turns to the vigorous beauty of the earlier and less sophisticated types.