Another drawing (Plate 4) shows a typical example, formerly in Sir Charles Robinson’s collection, of the better kind of “blue and white” produced during the reign of Wan Li, who was contemporary with our own Queen Elizabeth. That this elegant wine-pot found its way to Europe at no long interval after it was made is proved by the bronze mounting, which happily accentuates its gracefulness of contour. The domed cover of ogee outline and the crested borders indicate that the mounting is of German origin, and was done probably at Augsburg in the early years of the seventeenth century. The six sides of the body form panels filled in with a variety of flowers, among which may be distinguished such oft-recurring emblems of longevity as the lotus and the _ling-chih_ or miraculous fungus; the slender neck is painted with conventional flames. In the hollow beneath the foot is the word _fu_ (“longevity”), written in seal character.
This piece belongs to the same class of finer porcelain made under Wan Li as a melon-shaped wine-pot, mounted in silver-gilt, bearing the London hall-mark for 1585-86, and the well-known set of bowls, also with Elizabethan silver-gilt mounting, which were formerly in the possession of the Cecil family at Burghley House. In addition to this finer porcelain, vast quantities of “blue and white” ware of inferior quality were made for export. It went eastwards to Japan, where it provided patterns for some of the porcelain turned out from the kilns of the province of Hizen, and westwards to Persia, to be imitated in earthenware by the native potters of the time of the great Shah Abbas II. The decoration, rough and careless as it often is, has generally a certain attractiveness on account of its freedom from the fault of over-refinement. Roughly-sketched landscapes with deer, hares or birds in shaped panels are frequent motives.
A dish at South Kensington, probably of the Wan Li period, is doubly interesting. Its decoration of floral ornament on scrolled stems is identical with a design not uncommon on Damascus earthenware of the sixteenth century. The back exhibits an unglazed surface of deep reddish-yellow, and bears, sharply cut into the paste, the Persian word _naranji_ (“orange-coloured”) and a Persian name, probably that of a former owner.