Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/440

 mens are baked in closed furnaces, the arrangement of which is like that of our moufles. It seems, however, that these furnaces have a circular shape, which would make them resemble porcelain ovens of small dimensions If the reader has well understood my object in comparing the porcelain industries of China and of Europe, he will see the advantages that can be drawn by studying attentively the processes indicated in Chinese books for obtaining certain fonds de couleurs au grand feu. The reproduction of céladon as it is made in China, of the rich reds and lustrous blues so prized by amateurs, the imitation of crackle large and small, would confer advantages the more certain in that these products have a character of quite special originality, that they are much in vogue, and that, up to the present, attempts to imitate them in Europe have not been successful."

M. Salvétat might have added that attempts to reproduce these remarkable works are unsuccessful in China itself. Doubtless many causes have combined to bring about this result, but the most important, as well as the most comprehensive, is, perhaps, the loss of patronage. Patience that knew no weariness, and painstaking that kept no count of time, were distinguishing characteristics of the old artists, but they were characteristics that owed their development less to inspiration than to circumstance. In China, under successive Emperors from the Tang dynasty down to the middle of the seventeenth century, the keramist's masterpieces were destined for Imperial use. He was able to be sure that whatever excellence he might obtain, at whatever cost, would be more than adequately appreciated. Yet, even