With brocade ground and panel with an elephant (the symbol of Great Peace). Lion on cover. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). Height 21¼ inches. _Dresden Collection._] [Illustration: Plate 106.--K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ Porcelain. _Alexander Collection._ Fig. 1.--Dish with rockery, peonies, etc., birds and insects. Diameter 16¼ inches. Fig. 2.--“Stem Cup” with vine pattern. Height 5¾ inches.] [Illustration: Plate 107.--_Famille verte_ Porcelain made for export to Europe. K’ang Hsi period (1662–1722). _British Museum._ Fig. 1.--Vase with “sea monster” (_hai shou_). Fig. 2.--Dish with basket of flowers. Mark, a leaf. Diameter 11 inches. Fig. 3.--Covered Jar with _ch’i-lin_ and _fêng-huang_ (phœnix).] The lateness of this latter date and the use of the word “delicacy” in the description of the piece lead us naturally to that peculiarly refined type of late _famille verte_ in which the ware is of eggshell thinness, the painting extremely dainty and delicate, and the colours rather pale but of perfect purity. Such are the well-known “birthday plates” with the reign mark of K’ang Hsi on the back and the birthday salutation in seal characters on the border: _wan shou wu chiang_--“a myriad longevities without ending!” They are reputed to have been made for the Emperor’s sixtieth birthday which fell in the year 1713, but the story is supported by no evidence of any kind, and they would have been equally appropriate for any Imperial birthday. The character of these wares is more suggestive of the Yung Chêng period, and it is probable that they belong to the extreme limit of the long reign of K’ang Hsi. To this period then we shall assign these and the whole group of kindred porcelains, the plates with designs similar to those of the “birthday plates,” but without the inscribed border, the small eggshell plates with one or two figures painted in the same delicate style, others with a single spray of some flowering shrub almost Japanese in its daintiness, and occasional bowls and vases with decoration of the same character. See Plate 113. For extreme delicacy of treatment is by no means a feature of the K’ang Hsi _famille verte_ in general, in which the Ming spirit with its boldness and vigour still breathed. It is rather a late development in the decadence of the ware, heralding the more effeminate beauty of the _famille rose_, and were it not for the evidence of the birthday plates I believe many connoisseurs would be tempted to ascribe these delicate porcelains to a much later reign.