publish in translation, the best Chinese works on the arts and handicrafts. He himself formed extensive collections of Chinese porcelain, pottery, coins and books, and was a frequent contributor to the journals of the Royal Asiatic Society and of the Royal Numismatic Society, of which he joined the councils. He was also a corresponding member of the Zoological and Numismatic Societies of Vienna.
His chief works are:
- 'Oriental Ceramic Art,' being a description of the W. T. Walters collection in Baltimore, published in ten richly illustrated volumes in 1897, followed by a separate edition of the text in 1899; though this work might be supplemented in regard to the earlier wares, it remains the classic on Chinese wares of the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties.
- 'Chinese Art' (Victoria and Albert Museum Handbook), 1904, 2 vols., dealing briefly with all branches of Chinese art; a valuable work, and full of information, though necessarily summary in its treatment of controversial points.
- 'Porcelain of Different Dynasties,' 1908, a reproduction with translation of a sixteenth-century Chinese collector's album with coloured illustrations; the original by Hsiang Yuan-p'ien, was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 1887, and the illustrations in Dr. Bushell's publication are taken from a copy of the original and are consequently of uncertain value; of the text, which is of great interest, a translation had been previously published by Bushell in 'Chinese Porcelain before the Present Dynasty' in the 'Journal of the Peking Oriental Society' in 1886.
- 'Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, being a translation of the T'ao Shuo,' prepared in 1891, and published posthumously in 1910, an extremely valuable work, ranking with (and in many points above) Stanislas Julien's translation of the 'Ching-te-chen T'ao Lu' (1856). The 'T'ao Shuo' itself ranks higher as a Chinese work on porcelain than the 'T'ao Lu,' and Bushell's translation, though not as precise as Julien's, is made with a practical knowledge of the subject which Julien did not possess.
- 'Jade in China' (1906), an illustrated work on the Bishop collection, including translations of the 'Yii Shuo' (discussion of Jade) by T'ang Jung-tso, and of the 'Yii tso t'ou' (illustrations of the manufacture of jade) by Li Shih-chu'an.
Bushell also edited Cosmo Monkhouse's book on 'Chinese Porcelain' in 1901; and with W. M. Laffan prepared the catalogue of the Morgan collection of Chinese porcelain in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (1907).
[Royal Asiatic Soc. Journal, 1909, p. 239; Who's Who, 1908; Brit. Mus. Cat.; private information.]
BUSK, RACHEL HARRIETTE (1831–1907), writer on folk-lore, born in 1831, in London, was the youngest of five daughters of Hans Busk the elder [q. v.] by his wife Maria, daughter of Joseph Green. An elder sister was Mrs. Julia (Pitt) Byrne [q. v.], and Hans Busk the younger [q. v.] was the elder of her two brothers. Miss Busk was well educated by her father, and from an early age she spent much time in foreign travel, becoming an excellent linguist. Brought up as a protestant, she joined the Roman catholic church in 1858, and her example was followed subsequently by her four sisters and younger brother. She lived much at Rome from 1862 onwards, and gained an intimate knowledge of the city and of society there in days of papal independence. Her wide sympathies gave her a wide circle of friends, among them Cardinal Giacchino Pecci, afterwards Pope Leo XIII (in 1878). In 1867 and 1868 she contributed a series of letters to the 'Westminster Gazette' (a weekly Roman catholic paper that ran from February 1859 till April 1879) on Roman politics and society, some of which were reprinted in 1870 in a volume entitled 'Contemporary Annals of Rome, Notes Political, Archaeological and Social, with a Preface by Monsignor Capel.' Travelling in outlying parts of Italy, Spain, and Austria, Miss Busk specially interested herself in folk-lore, collecting thousands of folk-tales and songs by word of mouth from the people. She published anonymously 'Patranas or Spanish Stories' (1870); 'Household Stories from the Land of Hofer, or Popular Myths of Tirol' (1871); and 'Sagas from the Far East: Kalmouk and Mongol Tales' (1873). Under her own name she issued 'The Folk-lore of Rome' (1874); 'The Valleys of Tirol' (1874); and 'The Folk-Songs of Italy' (1887): a well-edited selection, giving a specimen from each province with a line-for-line translation and notes. In 1898 she edited and published in 2 vols. her sister Mrs. Pitt Byrne's 'Social Hours with Celebrities.' She died at Members' Mansions, Westminster, on 1 March 1907, and was buried in the family vault at Frant, near Tunbridge Wells.
[The Times, 8 March 1907; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
