686 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. 



The pagoda illustrated in plate xi from the grounds of the impe- 

 rial summer palace of Yuan-ming Yuan is a fine example of archi- 

 tectural work in glazed faience, in the style of the famous porcelain 

 tower of Nanking. The Nanking pagoda was razed to the ground 

 by the Taiping rebels in the year 1854, but specimens of the tiles and 

 ornamental fixtures are preserved in the museum. The practice of 

 facing buildings, inside as well as outside, wath slabs or tiles of 

 faience coated with colored glazes is very ancient in Asia. The pro- 

 cessions of archers and lions lining the walls of the staircases of the 

 palaces of Darius at Susa are striking examples of early date, and 

 the art was further developed in the decoration of the mosques and 

 tombs of Persia and Transoxiana during the middle ages. It dates 

 in China from the later Han dynasty, during wdiich green glazed 

 pottery first came into vogue, and was revived in tlie earlier half of 

 the fifth century, when artisans are recorded to have come from the 

 Yueh-ti, an ludo-Scythian kingdom on the northwestern frontiers of 

 India, and to have taught the Chinese the art of making different 

 kinds of liu-li, or colored glazes. The center of the manufacture to- 

 day is Po-shan Tlsien, in the province of Shantung, where slabs and 

 rods of colored frits are produced, to be exported to all parts of the 

 country, whenever required for the decoration of cloisonne and 

 j)ainted enamels on metal, porcelain, or faience. The imperial pot- 

 teries for this kind of work are established in a valley of the western 

 hills near Peking, as well as in the mountains in the vicinity of Muk- 

 den, the capital of Manchuria. Figures of Buddha and other temple 

 divinities are fabricated at these works, as well as the many kinds of 

 antefixal ornaments, facings, and colored tiles required for imperial 

 buildings. When a suite of European palaces was designed by the 

 Jesuits Attiret and Castiglione for Yuan-ming Yuan, enameled 

 fountains, elaborate screens with trophies, helmets and shields, l)alus- 

 trades with ornamental flowerpots and the like were executed at these 

 potteries in orthodox Italian style. 



The glazes used in the decoration of this pagoda are hve in number: 

 A deep purplish blue derived from a compound of cobalt and man- 

 ganese silicates; a rich green from copper silicate; a vellow, approach- 

 ing the tint of the yolk of an Qgg, from antimony; a sang de b(cuf red 

 from copper mixed with a deoxidizing flux, and a charming turquoise 

 bhie derived from copper combined Avith niter. The last tAvo are 

 more sparingly employed than the rest. The fivefold combination is 

 intended to suggest the five jewels of the Buddhist paradise. A 

 jeweled jiagoda, pao t'a, of portentous dimensions, is supposed, in the 

 l^uddhisl cosmos, to tower upward from the central peak of the 

 sacred mount Meru, to pierce the loftiest heaven, and to illuminate 

 the boundless ether with effulgent rays proceeding from the three 



