In dating the _famille verte_ porcelains the collector will find his study of the blue and white of great assistance. There is, for instance, the well-known type of export ware--sets of vases with complex moulding, and dishes and plates, etc., with petal-shaped lobes on the sides or borders. The central design of the decoration commonly consists of _ch’i lin_, and phœnix, sea monsters (_hai shou_), storks or ducks beside a flowering tree or some such familiar pattern; and the surrounding petal-shaped panels are filled each with a growing flower, or a vignette of bird and plant, plant and insect, or even a small landscape. These bright but often perfunctorily painted wares are paralleled in the early K’ang Hsi blue and white. They are among the first Chinese polychrome porcelains to be copied by the European potters. See Plate 107. In the purely native wares the early Ch’ing _famille verte_ is distinguished by strong and rather emphatic colouring, the energy of the drawing and the breadth of design which recall the late Ming polychromes. The zenith of this style of decoration was reached about 1700, say between 1682 and 1710. This is the period of the magnificent vases with panel designs in brocaded grounds, or with crowded figure subjects, Court scenes, and the like, filling large areas of the surface, such vases as may be seen in the splendid series of the Salting Collection or in the Grandidier Collection in the Louvre. They are probably children of the great renaissance which began under the auspices of Ts’ang Ying-hsüan. Dated examples are extremely rare, and consequently the square vase on Plate 104 assumes unusual importance on account of the cyclical date which occurs in the long inscription, “the 29th day of the 9th moon of the _kuei mo_ year,” which we can hardly doubt is 1703. Incidentally another side of this vase illustrates the celebrated scene of the wine cups started from the “orchid arbour to float down the nine-bend river.”[319] Another example with a cyclical date (the year _hsin mao_, and no doubt 1711) is a globular water bottle “of the highest quality and technique, decorated with transparent luminous enamels of great beauty and delicacy,” in the Pierpont Morgan Collection.[320] But in this case the date is attached to a verse in the field of the decoration, and it may belong to the design rather than to the porcelain. [Illustration: Plate 104.--Three Examples of K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ Porcelain. Fig. 1.--Square Vase with scene of floating cups on the river; inscription with cyclical date 1703 A.D.; _shou_ characters on the neck. Height 18⅜ inches. _Hippisley Collection._ Fig. 2.--Lantern with river scenes. Height 13¾ inches. _Dresden Collection._ Fig. 3.--Covered Jar of _rouleau_ shape, peony scrolls in iron red ground, brocade borders. Height 22 inches. _Dresden Collection._] [Illustration: Plate 105.--Covered Jar painted in _famille verte_ enamels