The other three-colour group, composed of transparent green, yellow and aubergine purple glazes, usually associated with designs finely etched with a metal point on the body, were freely used in the K’ang Hsi and Yung Chêng periods in imitation of Ming prototypes. Such specimens are often characterised by extreme neatness of workmanship and technical perfection of the ware. The best-known examples are thin, beautifully potted rice bowls, with slightly everted rim, and a design of five-clawed Imperial dragons traced with a point and filled in with a colour contrasting with that of the ground, e.g. green on yellow, or green on aubergine, all the possible changes being rung on the three colours. Being Imperial wares these bowls are usually marked with the _nien hao_ of their period, but such is the trimness of their make that collectors are tempted to regard them as specimens of a later reign. But here again the Dresden collection gives important evidence, for it contains a bowl of this class with dragons in a remarkable purplish black colour (probably an accidental variety of the aubergine) in a yellow ground. It bears the mark of the K’ang Hsi period. The application of similar plumbo-alcaline glazes to a commoner type of porcelain is described by Père d’Entrecolles[298]:--“There is a kind of coloured porcelain which is sold at a lower rate than the enamelled ware just described.... The material required for this work need not be so fine. Vessels which have already been baked in the great furnace without glaze, and consequently white and lustreless, are coloured by immersion in a bowl filled with the colouring preparation if they are intended to be monochrome. But if they are required to be polychrome like the objects called _hoam lou houan_,[299] which are divided into kinds of panels, one green, one yellow, etc., the colours are laid on with a large brush. This is all that need be done to this type of porcelain, except that after the firing a little vermilion is applied to certain parts such as the beaks of birds, etc. This vermilion, however, is not fired, as it would evaporate in the kiln, and consequently it does not last. When the various colours have been applied, the porcelain is refired in the great furnace with the other wares which have not yet been baked; but care is taken to place it at the bottom of the furnace and below the vent-hole where the fire is less fierce; otherwise the great heat would destroy the colours.” [Illustration: PLATE 95 Two examples of Porcelain painted with coloured enamels on the biscuit, the details of the designs being first traced in brown. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722) Fig. 1.--One of a pair of Buddhistic Lions, sometimes called Dogs of Fo. This is apparently the lioness, with her cub: the lion has a ball of brocade under his paw. On the head is the character _wang_ (prince) which is more usual on the tiger of Chinese art. Height 18 inches. _S. E. Kennedy Collection._