But the characteristic polychrome of the period, the _Wan Li wu ts’ai_, combines enamelled decoration with underglaze blue, and this again can be divided into two distinctive groups. One of these is exemplified by Plate 81, an Imperial vase shaped after a bronze model and of the same massive build as its fellow in blue and white, which was described on p. 67. Here the underglaze blue is supplemented by the green, the impure yellow and the sticky coral red of the period, and the subject as on the blue and white example consists of dragons and phœnixes among floral scrolls with borders of rock and wave pattern. The object of the decorator seems to have been to distract the eye from the underlying ware, as if he were conscious of its relative inferiority, and the effect of this close design, evenly divided between the blue and the enamels, is rather checkered when viewed from a distance. But both form and decoration are characteristic of the Wan Li Imperial vases, as is shown by kindred specimens, notably by a tall vase in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, of which the design is similar and the form even more metal-like, having on the lower part the projecting dentate ribs seen on square bronze and cloisonné beakers of the Ming dynasty. Two other marked examples of this colour scheme, from which the absence of aubergine is noteworthy, are (1) a ewer in the British Museum with full-face dragons on the neck supporting the characters _wan shou_ (endless longevity) and with floral sprays on a lobed body, and (2) a straight-sided box with moulded six-foil elevation, painted on each face with a screen before which is a fantastic animal on a stand, and a monkey, dog and cat in garden surroundings. The second--and perhaps the more familiar--group of _Wan Li wu ts’ai_ is illustrated by Fig. 1 of Plate 82, on which all the colours, including aubergine, are represented in company with the underglaze blue. There is no longer the same patchy effect, because the blue is more evenly balanced by broader washes of the enamel colours, particularly the greens. The design of this particular example is a figure subject taken from Chinese history (_shih wu_), supplemented by a brocade band of floral scroll work on the shoulder and formal patterns on the neck and above the base. The former and the latter positions are commonly occupied in these vases by a band of stiff leaves and a border of false gadroons, both alternately blue and coloured. The stiff leaves in this instance are replaced by floral sprays, and the coloured designs are outlined in a red brown pigment. The mark under the base is the “hare,” which has already been noticed on examples of late Ming blue and white.[203] Another late Ming mark, _yü t’ang chia ch’i_,[204] occurs on a dish in the British Museum, with design of the Eight Immortals paying court to the god of Longevity (_pa hsien p’êng shou_), painted in the same style but with a predominance of underglaze blue. [Illustration: PLATE 80