THE CERAMIC ART IN CHINA. 427 



destroyed Chiugte-cheu and its factories, the manufacture of porcelain 

 ceased entirely. 



During the reigns of his son T'ungchih (1862 to 1874) and nephew 

 Kuanghsii (1875 to date) the manufacture has been renewed and great 

 attention paid to its improvement, but it still falls far short of the 

 classic periods of Yungcheng and of Chienlung. Some of the decora- 

 tions in sepia exhibit considerable artistic merit, and a style of decora- 

 tion consisting of flowers and butterflies in black and white upon a pale 

 turquoise ground was highly appreciated some fifteen years ago among 

 foreigners. The greatest measure of success has, however, of late 

 years been gained in the reproduction of the famille verte decoration of 

 the first half of K'aughsi's reign, and of this ornamentation or of plum- 

 blossom on black grounds. So good are these imitations that a prac- 

 tised eye can alone detect the false from the real, and I have known a 

 pair of black-ground vases, only two or three years old, purchased by a 

 foreign dealer for over $1,000, under the belief, no doubt, that they 

 dated from the time of K'anghsi or of Chienlung. 



INTRODUCTION OF CHINESE PORCELAIN INTO EUROPE. 



M. Brongniart stated that porcelain was first introduced into Europe 

 by the Portuguese in 1518. Eesearches made since the publication of 

 this work in 1844 prove, however, that oriental porcelain was known in 

 Europe many years prior to that date. In Kew College, Oxford, is 

 still preserved a celadon bowl mounted in silver richly worked, known 

 as ''Archbishop Warham's cup" and bequeathed by that prelate (1504 

 to 1532) to the college, which was imported into England before the 

 reign of Henry VIII. Marryat, in his history of Porcelain, also men- 

 tions some bowls which were given to Sir Thomas Trenchard by Philip 

 of Austria when, after leaving England to assume the throne of Castile 

 in 1505, he was driven back by a storm to Weymouth and entertained 

 there by Sir Thomas. These bowls are said to have been preserved by 

 the Trenchards, and to be of white porcelain decorated with blue under 

 glaze. From M. du sartel's work we learn that amongst presents sent 

 by the Sultan to Lorenzo de Medici in 1487 were porcelain vases; and that 

 this ware is mentioned about the same time in the maritime laws of 

 Barcelona as one of the articles imported from Egypt. In letters, too, 

 addressed by the Venetian ambassador at the court of Teheran in 1471 

 to his government frequent mention is made of porcelain ; and some 

 decades earlier, in 1440, the Sultan of Babylonia sent three bowls and 

 a dish of Chinese porcelain {de porcelaine de Sinant), * to Charles VII, 

 King of France, by the hands of a certain Jean de Village, the agent 

 in that country of a French merchant named Jacques Coeur. 



Nearly three centuries earlier still, mention is made in an Arabian 

 MS., known as the Makrizi MS., in the National Library, Paris, and 



Du Sartel : " Histoire de la Porcelaiue Chinoise, " p. 28. 



