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Page:Brinkley - China - Volume 1.djvu/406

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CHINA

is the commonest variety, and there is the new sort with coloured enamels which has only been seen within the past few years." That M. Gersaint's estimate of the costliness of choice specimens was not exaggerated may be ascertained by examining the accounts of sales made at that time. Thus, when (1767) the collection of M. Julienne was brought to the hammer, two large Dogs of Fo, in turquoise ware splashed with violet, sold for 4,800 livres, and a céladon bottle with flames and dragons in relief, for 1,996 livres, whereas Raphaël Sanzio's painting of the "Holy Family" fetched only 399 livres, and Guido Reni's "Infant Jesus," 1,100.

It is the fashion with Western amateurs to attribute a large proportion of the older specimens in their collections to the Ming Dynasty (1368—1661). From what has been here recorded the reader will readily see that no such estimate of age is justifiable. Fine pieces manufactured during the celebrated epochs of the Ming Emperors commanded enormous prices in China—prices quite out of proportion to their decorative merits from a Western point of view. The inferior but more brilliant productions of the Lung-ching and Wan-li reigns (1567—1619) did probably form a small part of the porcelain exported from Canton and Macao, but even this supposition admits of reasonable dispute. With exceptions so rare as to be almost unworthy of notice, it may be concluded that the oldest specimens in Western collections of the last century dated from the Kang-hsi era (1662—1722). M. du Sartel, the latest writer on Chinese keramics, appears to have shared the delusion of many brother connoisseurs in this respect, despite the generally painstaking and appreciative character of his

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