The characteristic qualities of K’ang Hsi porcelain are well illustrated by the vases chosen for the drawings reproduced in Plates 7 and 8. The first of these is a “blue and white” covered vase, formerly in the collection of Mr. James Orrock, with decoration in shaped panels reserved on a “powdered blue” ground. Of the four large panels, two are filled with sprays of flowers, and a third with a selection from the curious assemblage of objects known as the “Hundred Antiques” (_Po Ku_), symbolising the elegant arts and accomplishments. In the remaining panel is a mountainous landscape rendered in the conventional manner customary in Chinese paintings; the conventions are not such as we are familiar with in Western art, but once accepted, they will be found to suggest nature and to perform a decorative function no less effectively than those of the European designer.
The cobalt-blue is typical of the finest quality of the period; it has a depth of tone and a limpid brilliancy found only in the reign of K’ang Hsi, compared with which all but the best blue of other periods seems dingy and lustreless. The ground colour is carefully sprayed or splashed on to the vase, and has in consequence on a close inspection a minutely speckled appearance; to this is owing the intense throbbing effect which has often been noticed as the peculiar quality of the blue of this class. This beauty of colour, combined with the faultless spacing of the decoration, compensates for a certain prim formality noticeable when comparison is made with the less orderly designs of the Ming dynasty.
Passing on to Plate 8, we come to a representative of the class of decoration above all others associated with the K’ang Hsi period. This class is derived from the “five colour” group, already discussed, of the later Ming emperors, characterised by painting in enamel colours fired over the glaze at a comparatively low temperature, and hence known to French collectors as enamels of the _demi-grand feu_. From the predominance of green the class is generally termed the “_famille verte_.” The blue comprised among the five colours of the Ming dynasty is always an underglaze cobalt painted on the biscuit before the application of the glaze; but in the majority of pieces of later date, whether strictly of the “five colour” order or of the derivative _famille verte_, the blue, like the rest of the pigments, is an overglaze enamel.