THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 423 



chronicled in the records left by such careful and methodical workers 

 as these Jesuits priests were; and the explanation which the existence of 

 such a school would have afforded must therefore be abandoned. Abbe 

 Favier, however, informs me that FF. Castiglione and Attirer were noted 

 painters at Peking both of portraits and of landscapes, and that they 

 formed a school, paintings by their pupils having come into his posses- 

 sion. It may then, I think, be confidently assumed that the Imperial 

 family having in the first instance been struck with the beauty of the 

 ornamentation on the enamel watches, snuff-boxes, etc., which came to 

 China from France during the reign of Louis XIV, a somewhat similar 

 style of decoration was introduced about 1728, or shortly after, for ar- 

 ticles intended for imperial use ; and that subsequently the Jesuit 

 brothers, Castiglione and Attirer were commissioned to execute Euro- 

 pean designs, which were sent to Ohingte-chen, to be there copied on 

 porcelain. As no article which was not perfect in every detail could 

 be forwarded to Peking, many of the pieces ordered for the court 

 would then (as now) be rejected by the superintendent of the manu- 

 factory, and be retained by him or his subordinates. These would 

 gradually pass into other hands, and possessing at once the charm of 

 novelty and the merit of being in a style appreciated at court, would 

 serve as models in the decoration of more ordinary ware. 



About the same period, that is, during the later years of Yungcheng's 

 reign, which ended in 1735, Ku Tlich-hsiian, a subordinate ofiHcer, I 

 believe, in the directorate of the Chingte-ch6n factories, introduced the 

 use of an opaque-white vitreous ware for the manufacture of articles 

 of small dimensions, such as snuff-bottles, winecui)s, vessels for wash- 

 ing pencils in, etc. The vitreous nature of the body imparted a tone 

 and brilliancy to the colors used in the decoration which was greatly 

 admired ; and, under the auspices of T'angyiug, all the artistic and 

 technical skill of the government factory was lavished upon these lit- 

 tle gems, which are certainly among the masterpieces, if not the mas- 

 terpieces, of ceramic art in China, being valued more highly than jade 

 by Chinese connoisseurs of the present day. The decoration of the 

 best specimens of this ware will well repay minute study. The choice of 

 groundwork is effective, the grouping of the colors soft and harmoni- 

 ous, the introduction of European figures is interesting, and the ar- 

 rangement of flowers evidences the highest artistic skill. Nos. 324 to 

 327 are admirable specimens of this very rare ware. The earliest pieces 

 were marked, usually in red, ta-chHng-nien-ehih, " Made during the great 

 Pure (the Ch'ing or present) dynasty, " as in No. 323 ; the later pieces, 

 during Chienlung's reign (1736 to 1795), had the mark within a square 

 seal-like border, Chienlung nien-chih " Made during the reign of ChicMi- 

 lung," engraved in the foot, and filled with a thick, bright-blue enamel 

 glaze. It is said that when specimens of this ware were submitted to 

 the Emperor Yungcheng he expressed his high admiration of their 

 beauty, but at the same time a regret that it should not be possible to 



