Dobrovits Aladár szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 1. (Budapest, 1954)
Idegennyelvű kivonatok
ween the body and the bulb, and the neck below the mouth is a little shorter. The decoration is less formal in the whole, the brush strokes are not precise, not so bold, not so distinct, they are done in a summary way. On certain places they are not more than just indicative. The blue is more watery in character, which is not simply a question of the paints' quality, but also a sure sign of this belated style of the ..transition period". (Fig. 40—41.) The floral design could be hardly called a „tulip" wihout knowing the proceeding stages. Only the flower and the bottom ring with three small round leaves are close to the original design. Our piece was made most probably during the late K'ang Hsi years. This is as far as we could trace the survival of the original style of the transition period. Let us now turn to a vase whose dating seems to be problematical. This is a beaker in our collection, 1 ^ with the upper part cut off, fig. 47. One vase of a pair of beakers of the former Eumorfopoulos collection, 17 helps us to restore its original shape and also to compare with. The Eumorfopoulos piece is dated by Hobson as of K'ang Hsi period. The middle bulbous part of our vase is larger, longer even than the lower part of the beaker. The wall is heavily built, 12 mm. in thickness. On the bottom a ling chi fungus in a double ring. The blue is deep in tone, the glaze is very shiny. All these facts favour a dating to the transition period, 1620—1680, possibly nearer to the time of Wan Li, than to K'ang Hsi. The scroll ornament, wich was used much in the,,Ming peroid, is well done, in good composition, with some additions to the original design. I mean here the binding together of the stem with a funguslike motive, with petals on the arch. From this grew out a complete new design, somehow foreign looking in character. We find such ,, subsidiary" designs on a blue and white vase of our Museum, late K'ang Hsi time, 18 fig. 48. To help the identification I would like to call my readers' attention to that curled-in line which occurs almost on every petal (or leaf) on the transition periods' beaker, but here only on the middle one. To this group of scroll design belongs a vase from the Eumorfopoulos collection, 1 9 where the whole building up is very impressive, and very foreign looking at the same time. The bottom of the vase of fig. 48 is glazed without only mark, even without the double ring. The cross motives in a band and the four lucky emblems, all of them on the shoulder of the vase, prove its dating to the late K'ang Hsi decades. Let us now turn to the main designs of the vase. There are three landscapes in panels of straight lines and three „flower-and-bird" pictures in less regular frames-. I am very much interested in these panels because they were adopted later by the Japanese, and this kind of decoration became very popular on their hands, as we can see them on the 19 f h century prints and on lacquers since the second half of the 18 th century. Returning to the vase in question, the underglaze blue is rather pale in tone and the whole system of decoration lacks the vitality and the freshness. r The panel decorations are very characteristic to the K'ang Hsi porcelains. The painters had a certain preference for it and used it when the composition of design could be without. This is, I think, the case with one of our vases, 20 fig. 45 where this panel enclosing waves turns up among the motives of Hundred Antiques. (Pao Ko), also a much repeated scheme of decoration of K'ang Hsi vases and plates. This kind of decoration returned again around 1800, according to Hobson, 21 but combined with flowers. Fig. 46 shows a small size jar, the cover of which is missing. Before a double folded screen, two ladies are playing Chinese chess. On the stepping stones, a boy is coming towards them. On the other side, a fancy shaped rock with a banana tree complete the picture of the garden scene. On the shoulder hitched chevron pattern, on the bottom, an artemisia leaf. The tone of the blue is of lighter character and splashy. K'ang-Hsi period. Fig. 49 is perhaps the most representative and splendid among our K'ang Hsi pieces. 23 The form of the vase is well known from this period, the picture of a pheasant on a rock is also a familiar design, 24 here repeated in a very impressive composition and executed in a masterly way, covering % of the body. On the remaining part the drawing was done rather sparingly, a plant on the ground, a few lines in the upper region, suggesting birds. This is not an uncommon device on the „mantelpiece" wares, turned partly to the wall. The porcelain of the vase is of very fine quality. On the bottom, double ring. Product of Ching-te-Chen in the years around 1700, at the height of its glory during K'ang Hsi years.
