The use of underglaze red in the Wan Li period has already been mentioned (p. 59), and though Chinese writers classed it as _chi hung_ they would not admit it to an equality with the brilliant reds of the fifteenth century.[196] Where red is named in the lists of Imperial porcelains we are left in doubt as to its nature, whether under or over the glaze; but there are two little shallow bowls in the British Museum with a curious sponged blue associated with indifferent underglaze red painting, which bear the late Ming mark _yü t’ang chia ch’i_.[197] A bowl of lotus flower pattern, similar in form to that described on p. 66, but deeper, and painted with similar designs in pale underglaze red, though bearing the Ch’êng Hua mark, seems to belong to the late Ming period. The Wan Li polychromes will naturally include continuations of the early Ming types, such as the large jars with decoration in raised outline, pierced or carved and filled in with glazes of the _demi-grand feu_--turquoise, violet purple, green and yellow--wares with flat washes of the same turquoise and purple, incised designs filled in with transparent glazes of the three colours (_san ts’ai_), green, yellow and aubergine, and, what is probably more truly characteristic of this period, combinations of the first and last styles. A good example of the transparent colours over incised designs is Fig. 1 of Plate 79, a vase of the form known as _mei p’ing_ with green Imperial dragons in a yellow ground and the Wan Li mark. All three of the _san ts’ai_ colours were also used separately as monochromes with or without engraved designs under the glaze, a striking example in the Pierpont Morgan Collection being a vase with dragon handles and engraved designs under a brilliant iridescent green glaze, “which appears like gold in the sunlight.”[198] But though these types persisted, they would no doubt be gradually superseded by simpler and more effective methods of pictorial decoration in painted outline on the biscuit, filled in with washes of transparent enamels in the same three colours. These softer enamels, which contained a high proportion of lead and could be fired at the relatively low temperature of the muffle kiln, must have been used to a considerable extent in the late Ming period, though their full development belongs to the reign of K’ang Hsi, and there will always be a difficulty in separating the examples of these two periods, whether the colours be laid on in broad undefined washes, as on certain figures and on the “tiger skin” bowls and dishes, or brushed over a design carefully outlined in brown or black pigment. There is one species of the latter family with a ground of formal wave pattern usually washed with green and studded with floating plum blossoms, in which are galloping sea horses or symbols, or both, reserved and washed with the remaining two colours, or with a faintly greenish flux, almost colourless, which does duty for white. This species is almost