344 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



va.so, forms the tint called haricot, a kind of fawn color; with a further 

 quantity of oxygen of equal amount a protoxide is formed, producing a 

 beautiful green, that may be changed into sky-blue by increasing the 

 oxygenation. The tints upon a vase may thus be modified almost indefi- 

 nitely by a due regulation at different periods during the process of 

 baking of the currents of air admitted. " When a clear fire placed in a 

 strong current draws a considerable column of air, all the oxygen is not 

 consumed, and part of it combines with the metal; if, on the other hand, 

 thick smoke is introduced into the furnace, of which the carbonaceous 

 mass, greedy of oxj'gen, absorbs everywhere this gas, necessary for 

 its combustion, the oxides will be destroyed and the metal completely 

 restored. Placed at a given moment in these given conditions, by the 

 rapid and simultaneous introduction of currents of air and of sooty 

 vapors the haricot glaze assumes a most picturesque appearance ; the 

 whole surface of the piece becomes diapered with veins and streaked 

 colorations, changing and capricious as the flame of spirits, the red 

 ox3'dulate, passing by violet into pale blue and to the green protoxide, 

 evaporates itself even completely upon certain projections, which 

 become white, and thus furnishes happy accidental combinations."^ 

 The supernatural changes are either of color, as when a piece of porce- 

 lain is taken from the kiln having developed a patch of some new color 

 in a natural shape, or of form, "as when some unusually large slabs 

 were requisitioned bj' one of the Ming emperors, which were trans- 

 formed into beds and boats, with equipage complete, and forthwith 

 broken up by the startled potters, as gravely reported by the official 

 in charge b}^ wa}' of excuse for their absence."' In the Buddhist tem- 

 ple Pao-kuo-ssu in Pekin is a famous yao-pien image of Yuanj'in, a 

 finely designed figure enamelled in colors, light blue, crimson, yellow, 

 and two shades of brown; of which, in an ode from his pen engraved 

 on the shrine, the Emperor Chienlung saj^s the goddess descended into 

 the kiln to fashion an exact likeness of herself. 



The reference to the introduction to "the French method of painting" 

 is of so interesting a nature as to merit more detailed consideration. 



The Jesuit missionaries of the seventeenth century gained for them- 

 selves a position of dignit}' and influence beside the Dragon throne such 

 as no foreigner before or since has succeeded in attaining. This posi- 

 tion, and a tolerance which saw nothing incompatible with the Catholic 

 religion in the cherished observance of the Chinese — in the payment 

 of official honors to the sage Confucius and in the performance of 

 certain rites in honor of ancestors erroneously termed "ancestral wor- 

 ship" — caused a remarkable spread of Catholicism, which, owing to 

 the labors of Father Ricci and his successors, had already established 

 itself under the Ming dynasty, counting among its members many 



' Jacqueiuart, History of the Ceramic Art, translated by Mrs. Palliser, p. 50. 

 ''S. W. Bushell, Letter in North China Herald, May 12, 1888. 



