Although not belonging to the same family, we may here refer to a rare vase (Fig. 89), which supplies us with a remarkably fine specimen of a kindred style of ornamentation. In this case the ground is black, and the "hawthorn," or plum-tree, sprays, with white flowers, are wreathed gracefully over its surface. The green of the leaves would lead us to class it with the Green family. The piece is, however, exceptional, since black is, as a rule, seldom introduced to any great extent in decoration. To what fabric or age shall we attribute it? It is possibly a specimen of the skill of Thang-kong, who lived between 1736 and 1795, and was director of the Imperial works. Thang not only reproduced some of the ancient colors, such as the dark-blue and red, but gave full sway to his own inventive genius. Among his original works are a purple, a black enamel, and a black enamel with white flowers, which suits the description of the unique specimen referred to. It is, in any event, by reason both of its graceful shape and decoration, deserving of attention.
[Illustration: Fig. 89.--Chinese Porcelain. White "Hawthorn" on Black. (S. P. Avery Coll., N. Y. Metropolitan Museum.)]
To return to the blue-and-white, there are specimens, generally plaques, with flowers resembling asters, painted in blue (Fig. 90). One has some difficulty in bringing the formal arrangement of these flowers into accord with Chinese art as we find it elsewhere. The flowers are regularly disposed in the centre of the plaques, and repeated, in smaller size, in a single row round the rim. It seems more than probable that the style is borrowed or slightly modified, and one is strengthened in such a supposition by the fact that it is seldom, if ever, found upon pieces as pure in paste as the average Chinese porcelain. Possibly, with the intention of following his model more closely, the Chinese artist designedly resorted to an inferior body, such as might have reached China from Persia.
There are certain pieces of blue-and-white in which both Persian forms and Persian styles of decoration have been followed, and these introduce the general subject of Persian influence as felt in China. It first manifested itself as far back as the Siouen-te period (1426) of the Ming dynasty, and is further represented by pieces belonging to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most easily recognized are those in which the Persian form is adopted, although the paste alone would lead one to ascribe them to China, as it is invariably finer than anything known to have come from Persia. There is in Mr. Runkle's collection a ewer decorated with flowers in light-blue, resembling that of Tch'aï porcelain, the famous "blue of the sky after rain." Real examples of this old blue must needs be rare, since the porcelain, variously called Tch'aï, Tcheou, and Tchi-tsong, was, like the old white, valued, even in fragments, as highly as jewels. A second from the same collection is given on the following page (Fig. 91). The panels are black, the flower and border decoration are in pink, green, and yellow, and show the variety and execution distinctive of Chinese work. There are many pieces of the same class in which the artist has attempted to follow the Persian styles more closely, but even a slight examination can leave little doubt of their Chinese origin. In connection with the blue-and-white decoration may be mentioned the vases of sea-green céladon, in which panels of white are reserved. On these are figures of men and animals, landscapes or flowers, in blue. A favorite form, and one well suited to this style of decoration, is a square bottle or vase, the sides of which enable the artist to paint the design in blue upon the flat.