But all the other forms of polychrome decoration at this period must yield (numerically, at any rate) to the on-glaze painting in _famille rose_ enamels, or, as the Chinese have named them, “foreign colours.” The nature of these has been fully discussed, but there is no doubt that their application was widely extended in the Ch’ien Lung period, and one point of difference, at least, is observable in their technique, viz. the mixing of the tints in the actual design so as to produce the European effect of shading. By this means the graded tints in the petals of a flower, and the stratified surface of rocks and mountains, are suggestively rendered. It would be impossible to enumerate the endless varieties of design employed in this large group. Contrasting the decoration of his own time with that of the Ming porcelain, the author of the _T’ao shuo_,[452] which was published in 1774, says: “Porcelain painted in colours excelled in the Ming dynasty, the majority of the patterns being derived from embroidery and brocaded satins, three or four only out of each ten being from nature and copies of antiques. In modern porcelain, out of ten designs you will get four of foreign colouring, three taken from nature, two copies of antiques, one from embroidery or satin brocade.” In their ordinary acceptation the terms are not mutually exclusive, and the last three types might be, and indeed are, all expressed in foreign colouring; but presumably the writer refers especially to that kind of “foreign colouring” which was directly based on the Canton enamels and is illustrated in the ruby-back eggshell dishes. The designs taken from nature would include figure subjects representing personages and interiors, landscapes, growing flowers and fruit, and the like, good examples of which are shown on Plates 126 and 127. The one represents the “Hundred Flowers,” the vase being, as it were, one great bouquet and the flowers being drawn naturalistically enough to be individually recognised. The other recalls the celebrated picture of the “Hundred Deer” by the late Ming artist, Wên Chêng-ming.[453]