CHINESE PORCELAIN IN WEST
criticisms. He arrives, however, at an ⟨indisputable⟩ conclusion when he writes:—"It must not ⟨be⟩ believed that at the end of the last century, the great European collections offered the brilliant aspect today presented by the cabinets of a modern collector. A new current has recently set in from these countries to ours. It has unveiled enamels that we previously ignored, enriched us with pure specimens of the true antique art, and revealed to us new forms of the ornamental genius that our fathers loved without knowing, as we know, its full extent." It is indeed of late years that the keramic riches of China have been exploited for the benefit and delight of the West. The supply is not yet exhausted, but it grows daily scarcer, owing partly to the actual paucity of choice specimens, and partly to the competition of Chinese virtuosi, who have re-developed something of their old-time mania, and will now give for certain varieties prices prohibitive to any but very wealthy collectors. Meanwhile, even Europe is parting with its treasures to enrich the cabinets of collectors in the United States, for there, above all other places, the porcelains of China are appreciated, and thither the choicest examples steadily gravitate.
It might have been predicted that the proverbial ingenuity of the Chinese would not fail them when the monetary expediency of reproducing celebrated porcelains of bygone eras became really urgent. Until some seven or eight years ago, there flowed into the market a sufficient supply of genuine old specimens to satisfy the collectors of that time and to furnish the stores of dealers in bric-à-brac. But America's requirements proved yearly more pressing, and as the means of meeting them grew necessarily less
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