Marks are rare on this group, as a whole, though they occur fairly frequently on the large vases, the commonest being the date mark of the Ch’êng Hua period. No one would, however, seriously argue a fifteenth century date from this mark which is far more common than any other on K’ang Hsi porcelain; and I have actually seen the K’ang Hsi mark on one or two specimens which appeared to be perfectly genuine. Curiously enough the K’ang Hsi mark is more often a sign of a modern imitation, but this in view of the perverse methods of marking Chinese porcelain is in itself evidence that the modern copyist regards the reign of K’ang Hsi as the best period of manufacture for this style of ware. [Illustration: PLATE 97 Square Vase with pendulous body and high neck slightly expanding towards the top: two handles in the form of archaic lizard-like dragons (_chih lung_), and a pyramidal base. Porcelain painted with coloured enamels on the biscuit, with scenes representing Immortals on a log raft approaching Mount P’êng-lai in the Taoist Paradise. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722) Height 20½ inches. _British Museum._] The noblest examples of this group, and perhaps the finest of all Chinese polychromes, are the splendid vases with designs reserved in grounds of green black, yellow or leaf green. Plates 96, 97 and Frontispiece will serve to illustrate the colours and at the same time some of the favourite forms[305] of these sumptuous pieces, the baluster vase, and the square vase with pendulous body, pyramidal base, and two handles usually of archaic dragon form. The favourite design for the decoration of these forms is the flowering prunus tree, beside a rockery with a few bright plumaged birds in the branches, one of the most familiar and at the same time most beautiful of Chinese patterns (see Plate 96). The flowers of the four seasons--peony, lotus, chrysanthemum and prunus--form a beautiful decoration for the four sides of another favourite form, a tall vase of square elevation with sides lightly tapering downwards, rounded shoulders, arid circular neck, slightly flaring at the mouth. The specimens illustrated are in the British Museum, but there is a wonderful series of these lordly vases in the Salting Collection, and in the Pierpont Morgan and Altmann Collections in New York. To-day they are rare, and change hands at enormous prices. Consequently all manner of imitations abound, European and Oriental, the modern Chinese work in this style being often highly successful. But the most insidious copies are the deliberate frauds in which old K’ang Hsi vases are stripped of a relatively cheap form of decoration, the glaze and colour being removed by grinding, and furnished with a cleverly enamelled design in colours on the biscuit. The actual colours are often excellent, and as the ware seen at the base is the genuine K’ang Hsi porcelain even the experienced connoisseur may be deceived at first, though probably his misgivings