Dr. Barber was authority for the statement that the millefiore paper-weights found their way into America from St. Louis in Alsace-Lorraine (first to produce paper-weights of the sort, circa 1840) and from Baccarat in France. To the manufactories of the latter town we look for the finest of the European millefiore paper-weights. At first the filigree rods, cut or uncut, were imported; but soon American glass-workers turned their attention to the complete production, and we may mark the period of 1860 to 1875 as that of the heyday of American-made millefiori glass.

It must not be thought that all the American millefiori glass has been picked up or picked over; there is much of it remaining to reward vigilant search and the collector will find it well worth going after. Out-of-the-way villages in the East and South still secrete many such pieces, and so does the householder of the Middle West; while one finds Pacific-ward examples of the old Glass of a Thousand Flowers that had so great a popularity before the Centennial turned the country to fresh ingenuities.

CHAPTER XXVIII

ANTIQUES OF PERSIA AND OF INDIA

Major Kyttyle’s installation was followed by the arrival of countless foreign-looking trunks and boxes and the neighborhood naturally wondered what on earth the major had in them. Mrs. Minch was of the opinion that a lone man could have no use for such a lot of truck. Mrs. Bittles ventured the opinion that Major Kyttyle might not be so “lone” after all; he might have a family and it might arrive later. “Families” usually did. Mrs. Minch only sniffed. “I can tell a bachelor anywhere,” she declared with conviction. And she could.

However, although no family came upon the scene, a whole menagerie arrived one by one, from distant parts, to keep the major company and to scandalize the town. There was a pet monkey, a poll parrot, a Persian cat, and a globe of diaphanous-tailed goldfish the like of which had never been dreamed of thereabouts and which quite put to rout the two gilded minnows owned by the Pickhams, which till then had been the only exotics in the district and had lent a certain distinction to the Pickhams to which, socially, their breeding did not entitle them.

As time went on Major Kyttyle brought to him a few congenial spirits and yet the little group really found out nothing about the major’s past beyond the fact that he had lived in the Far East for years. Why he had come to America no one knew. Why he had settled in our uneventful valley no one could guess. In fact, deliberately to choose the spot was thought to be an indication of mental weakness. But if there is anything that the major was not, that thing is mentally weak. No one else could have had the will power and ingenuity to evade as successfully as did this gentleman of mystery, the life-history disclosures sought by the Minches and others who came to “know” the major.

Notwithstanding Mrs. Minch’s earlier disapproval of the number of trunks and boxes which the “lone man” appeared to have accumulated, she came in time to revise her opinion when it was discovered that, though decent, the major’s wardrobe had not comprised his luggage, whereas wonderful objects of Oriental art at once made it clear that the trunks and boxes had been put to a very excellent and approved good use when their unpacking found the major’s house adorned with treasures in the way of pottery, brasses, rugs, damascened arms, Persian miniatures, Indian enamels, gem-encrusted jades, and what not.

Frankly, Major Kyttyle might have been as miserable with his treasures as was Midas with his enchantment had it not been that some of his neighbors were persons of culture and themselves not only appreciative of art but versed in some of its branches. Otherwise the major would have had to depend on whist, which, by the way, he played poorly and to which he was devoted.

As for the menagerie, it served to bring out the fact that the major adored children. His yard was always full of them after school let out. At first those fond mothers who could not be persuaded that the major’s several East-Indian servants were not one and the same with the tribe of the son of Hagar, were much distressed, but when these did not steal forth like pied pipers, they concluded that perhaps they weren’t gypsies after all.

Good old Major Kyttyle, how grateful I am that, mysterious though you were, you permitted me to browse for hours among the curious and beautiful things of the Orient that appealed to my child-fancy! And the marvelous tales you would tell us of their history! How patient you were with our eager queries! You should have been attached to some great museum, to interpret its hoardings to the soul of the people.

It was in your house, in the house of the stranger who had come among us, that I formed some knowledge of the arts of India and of Persia, a knowledge that made some of the beautiful things which had found their way from the Far East into my own home greater joys to behold than ever before.

I suppose I might have taken down one of the heavy volumes of that vast encyclopedia which so formidably thwarted youth’s enterprise though advertised to foster it, and have read therein much of what was told me in less pedantic and less academic style by the major.

If I have seemed to linger beyond the limits of a preface it is not that I started out to write a eulogy of Major Kyttyle, but rather that in what I am saying I hope there can be found some hint of the truest sort of collecting, the noblest sort of a collector—one who uses his collection as a preacher uses his text, happily discoursing to attentive ears and not shutting himself up with his treasures, like a medieval monk of old with book in cell.

The good major went to his rest long since. We had supposed him out of the land of India, not only because we gleaned from his stories that he had spent long years in service there, but also because of his attachment for the arts of India, which he seemed to hold above those of Persia. But when his grave was marked, the granite shaft provided in his will as a last luxury bore simply this legend, “Kyttyle of Khorassan.” Mrs. Minch was jubilant. “What did I tell you? A Persian! One never knows what with these mysterious people.”

It is only within the last half-dozen years that the arts of India and of Persia have attracted much attention with Americans in general. Happily, we are out of that stage where everything Asiatic is classed as either “Turkish” or “Chinese.” The field here for collection is a broad one and naturally embraces a myriad of objects. Private collections and public collections of the arts of Persia and of India, including those of Ceylon, are growing apace. Good things and fine things are appearing in public sales and are still to be picked up in antique-shops by the discriminating one who has taken the trouble to study the subject. Fortunately, the collector now has at hand such excellent books for reference as the various works by Ananda Coomaraswamy, Vincent Smith, Martin, Birdwood, Havell, Hendley, and others.

Of Persian objets d’art an anoymous writer in the article on Persia in “The Everyman Encyclopædia” has said:

Persia has ever been famed for its textiles—not only embroideries and printed cottons but marvelous rugs which stand supreme in beauty. The old rugs of Persia were ancestors of the carpet of other lands. In this connection it is worth noting that the Persians never made themselves ridiculous by the application of inappropriate design. You will not find an old Persian rug patterned with formal bouquets tied with blue ribbons, suggesting a gift being trodden underfoot. A Persian floral patterned carpet will suggest flowers and verdue in their wild state as the stroller might chance to find them.

Although the impress of the art of the Chinese ceramicist and of the shawl-weavers of Cashmere exerted some influence upon the Persians, still the art of Persia from earliest times has retained a national distinction. Nearly all are objects from the earlier periods now to be met with date from the reign of the shah Abbas the Great (1586-1628) when the native art manufacturers reached their greatest degree of excellence. Thence onward came the decline.

We have only to consider the fact that artistic ornamentation was applied to innumerable objects in daily service to realize how widely diffused was the taste for art among the Persians. They have truly been always an art-loving people. Some one has aptly remarked that every home in India is a nursery of art, and I think this must once have been true of the home in Persia. Apropos of Persian ornament it may be remarked that the native artists have always delighted in varied and symmetrical patterns of great intricacy. External beauty, too, seems to have been sought, rather than intrinsic thorough excellence of fabrique, excepting, of course, the products of the Persian looms and the works of the masters in metal.

As to Persian pottery, it has always been more or less of a puzzle to antiquarians. The ancient pieces in a perfect state of preservation are exceedingly few and rare, and all have been recovered from ruined areas.

There yet remain vast areas to be excavated by enterprising antiquarian expeditions and later efforts are sure to be productive.

The ancient lustre faience dates back many centuries. Its genre was carried down as late as 1586. The finest Persian ware resembles Chinese porcelain somewhat, having a white ground with azure-blue decoration in bold, free designs. The paste is hard and the color is not blended with the glaze. Later specimens of this genre have less good design, blending color, and a glaze showing greater vitrification.

A second sort of Persian faience is thicker, shows a departure from Chinese influence somewhat, has a softer and more porous paste, is brighter in the blue, has a less even glaze, and a less well-drawn design. Red enters, as also relief and gaufrures.

A third sort of ware is denser and harder, of blackish color on a white ground, with thick glaze, and some pieces have been varnished with single color. Such pieces in this genre as exhibit figures in the decoration show these without faces, which would suggest that this class of pottery was the product of Persian potters of the Mussulman Sunnis sect, a sect more rigidly opposed to presenting the human face in art than that of the Shiahs.

A fourth sort of ware is white and translucent, of still harder paste, and bearing no marks or makers. I have seen this ware only in small pieces. It is rare and is usually styled porcelaine blanche de Perse.

A fifth sort of faience is also translucid, very thin, and ornamented with lacy designs.

The ruins of Rhages have yielded examples of the sixth sort of faience, a common pottery of reddish clay varnished with single color, and all somewhat in imitation of the celadon porcelain of China. The green and bronze varnish is often very beautiful. Some of these pieces have designs in relief and gaufrure.

The faience tiles of Persia are among its most interesting and beautiful ceramic remains. Most of these tiles date from such Seljuk or Mogul rulers as Malik-Shah (1072), Hulagu Khan (1256), and Ghazan Khan (1295).

India has never produced anything like a porcelain. Even pottery of the glazed sort rarely appeared previous to the Mussulman tile products, which tile products were the forerunners of the modern glazed wares fabricated in Multan, Jeypore, and Bombay. However, unglazed pottery has been common throughout India for countless centuries.

In speaking of Hindu and Buddhist art Ananda Comaraswamy writes (“The Arts and Crafts of India and Ceylon”):

The alluring arts of the East are well worth one’s study, well deserving of one’s enthusiasm. Perhaps the illustrations of some of the antiques of Persia and of India here reproduced from photographs of some of the fine examples to be found will awaken an interest in the subject in some who chance upon them. I only hope the world holds more Major Kyttyles of revered memory, and that you, too, may have the good fortune to be brought into communion with such treasures as made the major’s home vie with our conceptions of the palace of Aladdin, treasures which in time brought even the Pickhams to forgive the major his diaphanous-tailed goldfish, to feel no longer the sting of the insignificance of their poor little gilded minnows.

CHAPTER XXIX

CHINESE PORCELAINS

The literature of China ascribes the invention of true porcelain to some twenty-five hundred years before Christ, but we cannot be certain that the art of porcelain-making was known and practised until, perhaps, after the seventh century. While Chinese literature of the early periods abounds in references to porcelain, we have not a single authentic dated piece of the very early dynasties. It seems plausible to advance the theory that true porcelain was an invention or discovery of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.). The Japanese writer Okakura-Kakuzo has suggested that to the alchemists of the Han dynasty came accidentally the discovery of the wonderful porcelain glaze. The literature by Chinese authors of the T’ang dynasty is rich in references to porcelain. The poet Tu (803-852), for instance, says:

The white bowls of Hsing-chou in Chihli and the blue bowls of Yuen-chou in Che-kiang were highly esteemed and celebrated in song and story. Their resonance of tone was such that musicians were said to have utilized them.

The Arabs and Chinese were conducting a flourishing trade during the eighth and ninth centuries. To Soleyman, one of the early Arabian traders who wrote an account of his journeyings, we owe the first mention of China in the literature of the world outside the empire. “In China,” said he, “they have a very fine clay which they manufacture vases from, as transparent as glass; water is seen through them.” Bushell (“Chinese Art,” vol. II) tells us that in the time of the Emperor Shi Tsung (954-959) of the brief Posterior Chou dynasty established at K’ai-fêng-fu prior to the Sung dynasty, an imperial rescript ordered porcelain “as blue as the sky, as clear as a mirror, as thin as paper and as resonant as a musical stone of jade.”

All the porcelains of the times we have referred to seem long since to have disappeared and the only knowledge of them which we have to-day is through the literature of their contemporary writers. The Sung dynasty (960-1280), the Yuan dynasty (1280-1367), and the Ming dynasty (1368-1643) open up to us surer knowledge as specimens of the time are available to students. The porcelains of the Sung and Yuan dynasties may be classed together. The ceramic production (yao) made in the province of Honan in the town now called Ju-chou-fu—a Sung dynasty porcelain therefore designated as Ju-Yao—stands famous for the qualities of its blues, which Chinese poets assure us rival the blue blossoms of the Vitex incisa, the Chinese “Sky Blue Flower.”

The imperial ware of the Sung dynasty was the Kuan Yao (two Chinese words signifying “official ceramic kiln”). Then there was the Yo Yao porcelain, the early crackled ware; and the Ting Yao, a porcelain having a delicate resonant body. This seems to be the most commonly met with among the wares of the Sung period. The Lung-ch’üan Yao of the Sung wares is the famed Celadon ware made in the province of Che-kiang. The Celadon ware of this dynasty is distinguished by its onion-sprout green color. The Celadon wares of later periods turn more either to greyish greens or to sea-green hues.

The Chün yao faience was the product of Chün-chou, now Yü-chou, a town of the province of Honan. Marvelous indeed were its glazes of unsurpassed brilliancy and beauty of color. The transmutation flambés were especially notable.

In the reign of Yung Cheng (1723) the emperor sent a list of Chün-chou pieces to be reproduced by the imperial potteries in Chung-te-chen, from which (record of this being extant) we are able to glean some knowledge of the great variety of glaze colors of the earlier period. In this list appeared crimson-rose, japonica-pink, sky-blue, plum-color, dark purple, millet-yellow, flambés, etc. Early in the eighteenth century all these glazes and colors were reproduced with marvelous skill, but the new white body was probably infinitely superior to the early body.

The Chien Yao Ware of the Sung dynasty was produced in Fu-kien province, where lustrous black-enameled tea ceremonial cups were manufactured. These were dappled with specks of white resembling the effect of hare’s fur and partridge breasts. The Japanese treasure these pieces, to which they have given the name “Hare-fur Cups,” above almost any other varieties of Chinese porcelain.

We now come to the Ming dynasty, and in the reign of Wan-li (1573-1619) the art of making and decorating porcelain had so advanced that native contemporaries were fond of declaring there was nothing that could not be made of the porcelain. The cobalt blues came into favor in this period, and it is also the time of the famed “Mohammedan blue.” European and American collectors have given a great deal of attention to the blue-and-white porcelains that came in with the close of the Ming dynasty. It was between 1662 and 1722, however, that the very flower of the blue-and-white porcelain was produced. This marks the reign of K’ang Hsi.

The K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722) was the culminating one of Chinese ceramic art. Of this porcelain, Bushell says:

He also tells us porcelains of the famille verte class pervade the period while those of the famille rose class may be said to have ushered in its close. The greens that give the porcelains of the famille verte and the famille rose classes their names are indeed gem-like in their beauty. Precious, too, to the collector are the Blue-and White or the Black Hawthorn Jars of the period. Hawthorn is a misnomer, for the prunus blossom and not the Hawthorn blossom furnishes the motif of the decoration. It is interesting to note that the Prunus blossoms in the white on the blue ground crossed by white zigzag lines represents to the Oriental fancy the flowers falling on ice breaking up in the springtime.

The master quality of fine porcelain is its glaze and the glazes of old Chinese porcelains have never been surpassed. The reigns of Yung Chêng and his celebrated son, Ch’ien Lung, who lend name to the period from 1723 to 1796, sustained the perfection of Chinese porcelain. The decadence of the art begins with the modern period, from 1796 to the present.

The marks on Chinese porcelains are various in character and come under one or more of the following divisions: marks of date, hall-marks, marks of dedication and good wishes, marks in praise of the piece of porcelain inscribed, symbols, and other pictorial marks and potters’ marks. It is not necessary here to go into the intricacies of these, but they furnish a fascinating study. This, too, is true of the designs that are to be found on the decorated pieces of Chinese porcelain. The casual observer will pick up a piece and admire or dismiss it on the judgment of the general impression it makes upon his artistic sensibilities. Not so with the connoisseur, who takes into consideration color, texture, glaze, and, quite as much as these (so far as intellectual interest is concerned), the story the design tells.

The porcelains of China, like the sword-guards of Japan, offer the native artists a vast wealth of mythological and folklore subjects. Then symbolism and occasion are closely cemented in Oriental thought, and if the collector of old Chinese porcelains finds their decoration puzzling at times in its significance, how absorbing are its unravelings!

Since the time of Queen Elizabeth the Western world has recognized the beauty and the decorative value of the porcelains of China, and at no time have they sunk in regard. Rarities are no longer likely to be found hidden away, or acquired for a posy. At the same time, the possession of a single object and some knowledge of the evolution in ceramics that led to it are interesting.

CHAPTER XXX

CHINESE AND JAPANESE LACQUER

FEW pieces of the lacquer of China and of Japan reached the hands of collectors before the beginning of foreign trade by China and the opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century. Just how few may be guessed from the fact that the Orientals who allowed over sixteen thousand pieces of porcelain to be exported to Europe in one of the years of the eighteenth century permitted but twelve pieces of lacquer to leave their shores. And how eagerly these bits were sought by the collectors of the time! Marie Antoinette was one of them, and the Marquise de Pompadour another. The collection of the former of some hundred pieces is preserved in the Museum of the Louvre. Madame de Pompadour was, in all probability, a collector of greater discrimination. She possessed rare artistic sense, and the hundred and ten thousand livres the marquise expended on her collection tempted even the shut doors of Asia!

Lacquer undoubtedly originated in China. Just when, we may not know, but it is of ancient ancestry. In fact, lacquer as a material has been used for centuries by the Chinese in industrial art. We can imagine that lacquer was at first employed as a preservative for the woodwork on which it was used as a coating, developing as time went on into a medium for artistic work of the highest order. Lacquer is not an artificial mixture such as our copal and other varnishes but is principally the natural product of the Rhus vernicifera, the Chinese lac tree, Ch’i shu. Therefore it is virtually “ready-made” when extracted. The tree abounds in central and southern China and is assiduously cultivated for its valuable sap.

Usually wood, most frequently cedar or magnolia, thoroughly dried and seasoned, forms the basis of lacquered objects. The form is thinly but securely constructed and primed. The surface is carefully ground down and coated thickly with a prepared varnish. This surface, when dry, is in turn made smooth by abrasion. Next this base is very skilfully covered with a layer of specially prepared silk, paper, or a cloth woven of hemp fibers, all depending upon the size and projected quality of the article. Successive coats of the prepared varnish are then applied, each being allowed thoroughly to dry. Finally the lac is applied, layer after layer, spread on at first, and then added to by means of fine brushes of human hair. Those parts of lacquer-work which stand forth in relief are first built up with a lacquer “putty” of special preparation.

There are never less than three or more than eighteen layers of lacquer employed, thorough drying requisite to each separate layer. It is interesting to note that several hundred hours may be taken up with the preparation of the grounding before the actual lacquering is begun! With a paste of white lead the artist outlines his design. Next he fills in the detail with gold and colors, over which a coat of transparent lacquer is applied.

In the reign of the founder of the Ming dynasty in China, Hung Wu, there was published the “Ko ku yao lun” (A.D. 1387), a learned antiquarian, art, and literary work written by Tsao Ch’ao, and comprised in thirteen books. From this we learn of the following sorts of lacquer then held in esteem: ancient rhinoceros horn reproductions, carved red lacquer, painted red lacquer, lacquer with gold reliefs, pierced lacquer, and lacquer with mother-of-pearl incrustations. Tsao Ch’ao’s erudition enables us, I think, to trace Chinese lacquer-work back to the Sung dynasty with reasonable certainty. Another Chinese writer, Chang Ying-wen, wrote a little book, the “Ch’ing pi ts’ang” or “Collections of Artistic Rarities,” which describes objects shown in an art exhibition held in the province of Kiang-su in the spring of 1570. After references to lacquers of the Yuan and the Sung dynasties he says in effect:

There was a notable revival of interest in lacquer-work in the years that followed the upset condition of China during the close of the Ming period, when lacquer-work was of necessity neglected. During the lifetime of Emperor Ch’ien Lung (1736-1796), Père d’Incarville, a member of the French Academy and a Jesuit savant of note, wrote a “Memoire sur le Vernis de la Chine,” published with illustrations in 1760. We find him saying: “Si en Chine les Princes et les grands ont de belles pièces de vernis, ce sont des pièces faites pour l’Empereur, qui en donne, ou ne reçoit pas toutes celles qu’on lui présente.” This, in itself, stimulated European interest in collecting lacquer at the time.

In recent years Canton and Fuchow have been centers for the manufacture of painted lacquer, called hua ch’i, and Peking and Suchow for carved lacquer, or tiao ch’i. However, the collector must not look for any pieces of finest quality in the tiao ch’i since the reign of Ch’ien Lung, who lent carved lacquer-work his warmest approbation. We are told of a certain celebrated Arabian traveler, Ibn Batuta by name, who was in Canton about the year 1345 and made note of the excellence of the lacquer-work he found there at that time. That of Fuchow is described in the words of Monsieur Paléologue as “most seductive to the eye from the purity of its substance, the perfect evenness of its varnished coat, the lustrous or deep intensity of its shades and the power of its reliefs, the breath of the composition and the harmonious tones of the gold grounds and painted brushwork.”

Of late years the collecting of the lacquers of Japan has engaged many of the most enthusiastic and discriminating connoisseurs, and there are many public as well as private collections of lacquer objects in America. Probably the favorite objects in Japanese lacquer are those interesting and beautiful little inrō or compartment box, indispensable to every Japanese gentleman’s attire in earlier days, and to which was attached by a silken cord the netsuke, or button, by means of which it was suspended from the obi, or sash. These lacquered inrō have not been surpassed for their beauty and are of literary interest.

Of the varieties of Japanese lacquer one may make mention of the nashiji, generally known to Western collectors as “avanturine,” so named by Europeans from its resemblance to avanturine Venetian glass. When kirikané (torn gold leaf) is employed the lacquer is called Giobunashiji. The togidashi lacquer is that in which the pattern is produced by grinding and polishing, revealing the gold ground. Hiramaki-ye is the Japanese term used for all those lacquers which have design not raised above the surface more than the thickness of the lines that trace it. Then there is to be found a combination of the flat-gold lacquer with the relief-gold lacquer. The red Japanese lacquer is known by the native name of tsuishu, and the black lacquer is called tsuikoku; those in which the design is carved out of the lacquer-formed or superimposed layers which are exposed by the incisions of the graver are called guri. The chinkinbori lacquer, in imitation of the Chinese lacquer, is a sort of patterned lacquer, the design of which is produced with a rat-tooth graver and the incision filled up with gold.

Honnami Kōyetsu (1556-1637) is one of the earliest Japanese lacquerers of importance whose work has come down to us. Koma Kiuhaka, who died in 1715, was another lacquerer of great distinction, the founder, in fact, of a “school.” Bunsai, Kōrin, Yastuda, and Yasunari were brilliant followers. Kōrin (1661-1716) was the most famous lacquerer Japan has ever produced. It was he who first extensively used mother-of-pearl and pewter ornament in Japanese lacquer in combination with the decoration. Collectors will find few signatures on pieces of lacquer; the work itself must be the guide.

CHAPTER XXXI

CHINESE SNUFF-BOTTLES

Perhaps he made some discreet concession to the material side of the adventure, for straightway he proceeded to cover a wall of one of the apartments in the palace with a marvelous scene, such as the one he had spent the day in contemplating. The next morning it was finished. Delighted, the emperor came to view it. “Ah,” said he, “wonderful, wonderful! It is the river, the bamboo, and there those majestic rocks!”

At the word, Wu Tao-tzu clapped his hands, and lo! there in the rocks of the picture a cavern appeared. Wu Tao-tzu stepped into it, the entrance closed, and Wu Tao-tzu disappeared from earth. Surely no legend better illustrates the Chinese point of view, that a painting is the home of the painter’s soul.

That is the story which was told to me one day when, happening into a Chinese shop where some antiques and curios were offered for sale, I chanced to pick up a tiny bottle. It was not over two and a half inches high. Its weight proclaimed it crystal. A miniature scene and inscription were skilfully and beautifully painted inside.

“This,” said the intelligent Chinese attendant, in answer to my question, “is little bit painting. Story one man artist man very much great. Him name Wu Tao-tzu.”

Then he told me the story, a golden nail on which to hang a bottle! Surely enough, there was depicted Wu Tao-tzu entering the cavern. The inscription vouched for the incident.

“But what a tiny bottle! What was it used for?”

“Much little bottle China old time fine like this. More other bottle kinds use snuff for, medicine for. Look yes you please.”

The Celestial showed me how the ivory “spoon,” running the depth of the bottle and fastened in the coral stopper, was manipulated to fetch forth portions of anything a vial of this sort might contain. In snuff-taking the “spoon” was emptied on the thumb nail and the “sniff” deftly taken. That was my introduction to the fact that snuff-taking in the Orient had fostered a fashion that produced objects of virtue fully as interesting and beautiful as, and certainly more curious than the snuff-boxes affected by the Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

After this is it any wonder that the collector’s instinct should have led me to be enthusiastic about Chinese snuff-bottles as a field for browsing? And soon I found that the fascination of these little objects of art had exerted no small influence on other collectors.

Fine snuff-bottles were not to be found at every turning. Nevertheless they were not so rare as one might imagine, although, as with any other class of art objects, supreme examples were difficult to obtain at any price. If China has a population of four hundred million souls it must not be assumed that her craftsmen have produced anything like four hundred million snuff-bottles. True it is that men, women, and children of China smoke, but they do not all take snuff.

Nearly all of these bottles that we see in collections are, perhaps, snuff-bottles, though many of them were used for medicines, as the Chinese were great medicine-consumers. They used medicines when well—which was most of the time—in diminutive doses, perhaps as charms, and when ill in quantities that would amaze and frighten us. Hecate and her witches never prepared caldron more terrific than the Chinese physician of yesterday devised for his certainly suffering patient. The famous materia medica of herbal which Li Shi-chin spent thirty years in preparing, a work published in 1590, contained over eighteen hundred prescriptions dear to the heart, though I fear disastrous to the well-being of the Chinese invalid pro-tem. Gallon containers would not have sufficed for some of these prescriptions, while others—the least virulent, and therefore to be toyed with—were harbored in the tiny bottles that snuff was, later, to usurp.

Miniature Chinese bottles found in Egypt and in Asia Minor—bottles of porcelain bearing inscriptions in Chinese from the Chinese poets—show that in the tenth century communication already existed between the extreme boundaries of Asia. Arabs traded at Canton and Hangchow to the end of the Sung dynasty, 1279. These little bottles were probably used by the Arabs for kohl, the black substance with which they painted their eyelashes. Sixty years before Li Shi-chin’s herbal—“Pun tsao” was its title—tobacco was introduced into China, and before long tobacco as snuff became popular and fashionable.

Among the ornamental articles of Chinese adornment, says an authority on eastern costume, in none do they go to so much expense and style as in the snuff-bottle, which is often carved from stone, amber, agate, and other rare minerals with most exquisite taste. Jade, of course, was most precious of all and often imitated in glass, as were topaz, amethyst, tourmaline, amber, and other stones and substances.

Collectors in Europe and America are beginning to realize what interesting things in the way of snuff-bottles the Chinese glass-worker produced.

All Occidental methods of glass-working have long been known to the Chinese. They have proved themselves skilful with blown, pressed, and molded glass. However, their fame as glass-workers rests chiefly with their cutting, deep chiseling, and undercutting objects of glass. In this respect they have not been surpassed. Their work in this field was undoubtedly inspired by their wide and varied experience with glyptic work, a field in which their accomplishments in fashioning jade and other hard stones served them a good turn.

As glass presented a somewhat less resisting mass than that of nephrite, jadeite, or rock crystal, the Chinese lapidary found in it ready response to his craftsmanship. The carved glass objects of the Chinese usually are small. They generally suggest by skilful coloring and tinting the hard stones they imitate. The Chinese snuff-bottles are especially remarkable in this respect, as they are also in the marvelous fertility of invention bestowed on their decoration, though in form they are nearly of one general type and do not vary greatly in size. From the plain crystalline glass bottles decorated with landscape or figure subjects (by deftly painting the interior walls of the bottle so that the scene shows through) to the much-bejeweled bottles, all these gems of Chinese fabrication are triumphs of the art, patience, and ingenuity of the Oriental hand and mind.

It is interesting to note that the Chinese have never made claim to the discovery of glass. The historical work, “Wei Luo,” based on third-century records, chronicles that ten colors of opaque glass were imported by the Chinese from Rome between the years 221 and 264. The Chinese themselves did not learn the art of glass-making until the fifth century.

The fine porcelain snuff-bottles of the Celestials are indeed things to be treasured. We find them in endless colors and designs. Some are plain, some with under-glaze decoration, some cased with pierced porcelain casing, others with molded decoration, and still others with painted decoration. Occasionally one finds a porcelain bottle whose glaze intentionally simulates glass.

The Chinese are skilful lapidaries. Their work in shaping jade and other hard stones has not been surpassed. The Celestial craftsman likewise shows great ingenuity in taking advantage of any irregularity in form or color of the stone he is working. The various quartzes are worked by the Chinese on the same treadle bench which they use in fashioning jade, and they work quartz stones along the same general lines.

A study of Chinese snuff-bottles will indicate the unlimited range in the decoration, form, etc., of these objects. It will be seen, however, that they are all nearly of a size dictated by general convenience in carrying in pockets and pouches. The stoppers of these Chinese snuff-bottles are scarcely less beautiful in many instances than the bottles themselves. As a general rule the stoppers are of material more precious than that used for the bottle. Pearls and precious stones are less often employed, and I have never seen a Chinese snuff-bottle stopper inset with diamonds. The diamond is a stone the Chinese have never appeared to regard highly except for its utilitarian possibilities. Coral is a favorite for the snuff-bottle stoppers. Ivory is not uncommon for stoppers, but fine ivory snuff-bottles are very rare, as likewise are fine cloisonné enamel bottles.

There is no gainsaying that Chinese snuff-bottles cannot fail to attract the collector by reason of their esthetic interest. At the same time, few objects open up a more interesting intellectual treat than is afforded by a study of these tiny bottles in respect to the subject of their decoration. Colors, too, are to be studied. Five colors enter popular Chinese tradition: black, white—the Chinese regard these as colors—blue, yellow, and red, to each of which is attached definite symbolism. Colors are, for instance, associated with the points of the compass—black with north, red with south, blue with east, and white with west. Yellow is the color associated with the earth, and so on.

Surely the treasured snuff-bottles of the Celestials offer the collector much that is intellectually delectable; and as really interesting specimens are not beyond the moderate purse, their enjoyment does not necessitate the sacrifices that might deter the collector since these little objects of art are not as hopelessly out of reach as were the grapes to Tantalus!

CHAPTER XXXII

CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS OF CHINA AND JAPAN

The basis of all enamels is the application of fusible silicate or glass, colored with metallic oxides, all upon a metal ground. The varieties of enamels have already been described at length in the chapter on European enamels, but it will be convenient to summarize the processes here as they apply to Oriental as well as to Occidental enamels.

In cloisonné enamel-work a metal base—of gold, silver, copper, or some other metal—has its design traced upon it by means of thin metal wires or strips soldered to the base and forming a number of divisions. These, when filled with the colored silicate (subjected to amalgamation by heat, and afterward polished) produce a beautiful patterned surface, the design of which appears traced in metal filaments. The Byzantine and the Greek enamelers executed their cloisonné enamels in gold, as likewise did the Anglo-Saxons, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Japanese in their finest work.

In the plique à jour enamels we find what is really a variety of cloisonné rather than a class, as the plique à jour is cloisonné unbacked by a metal ground but much like a leaded stained-glass window in miniature. That is, if one holds a piece of plique à jour work to the light he will find it allows the light to pass through, whence its name.

Champlevé enamel resembles cloisonné, but its pattern, instead of being traced by cloisons soldered on a metal base, is scooped out by a sort of deep engraving upon the metal base, these depressions being filled up with enamel, which is fired and then polished. The Celts, the Persians, and the enamelers of India worked in this manner.

Respoussé enamel is, one may say, a variety of champlevé, or at least so closely akin to it that it is seldom considered as composing a class by itself, though I think it should be. In such enamel-work the design is wrought upon the metal base, not with cloisons as in cloisonné, nor by scooping out by a graver, as in true champlevé. Instead, the design is worked upon the metal by hammering out—respoussé—the depressions to be filled with the enamel. This is then fired and polished, as all enamel of any class has to be. Some of the enamels of India are such fine examples of work of this sort that they have passed as true champlevé.

Finally, we come to the painted enamels, such as those of Limoges. In the earliest examples of the painted class one finds the design applied directly to the metal base, grain by grain and layer by layer, in such a manner that the various fusings and glazings produce the results one finds in the marvelous old Limoges enamels; while in later work the enamel is fused upon the metal base, the designs being painted (in some instances printed) on the enamel.

This brief survey of the characteristics of the different classes of old enamels will the better enable the collector to confine his attention for the moment to the subject of cloisonné enamels, and in particular to those of China and Japan. Of late years the cloisonné enamels of these countries have been extensively exported, more especially to America. Many of these modern examples are very beautiful, some of them very trashy, and none of them comparable in beauty with early Chinese work, though, from a technical point of view and an individuality of their own, I fancy some of the modern specimens would have made the seventeenth-century enamel-workers of China rub their eyes in wonderment. This great and difficult art is surely one of the glories of Chinese craftsmanship. One might not think that the outlook for collecting these old enamels in America very encouraging. Nevertheless it is a line of collecting that has not been overdone, and genuine old objects are to be found, here and there, by those who know them when they see them.

As color is the very soul of enamel, the rich, soft colors of the early Chinese work help to distinguish it. This is especially true of the varied and beautiful blues employed by the Chinese enamelers. Occasionally the Chinese employed both cloisonné and champlevé in the same piece as certain pieces of the Ch’ien Lung period (1736-1796) show. In genuine old pieces it often happens that corrosion has made its appearance around the cloisons. While the early history of Chinese cloisonné is lost to us, we know it to have been in favor in the early fifteenth century, as a vase in the Victoria and Albert Museum attests. Not only for its blues is Chinese cloisonné noted, but it possesses characteristic reds, lilacs, violets, pinks, greens, and orange as well. The Chinese enameler’s palette was medieval in its selection. The blues of turquoise and of lapis lazuli were great favorites likewise. A sang-de-bœuf and a sealing-wax red, opaque in quality, were further employed. In fact, the Chinese enamelers employed the colors of the early European cloisonné workers. Their whites, however, were always inferior and in early work exhibit air-hole pit marks.

The collector will understand from this how necessary it is for him to give careful attention to the subject of color in determining the early enamels. The metals employed by the cloisonné-workers should also be studied. Where gold was used it had to be fine gold, as alloys would not withstand the heat of the enameler’s furnace. Enamel does not hold so well to silver as to gold or copper. Then there is the distinctive polish of the earlier enamels. These were polished by hand, in consequence of which their surfaces did not present the mirror-like polish which modern contemporary cloisonné enamels exhibit. The surfaces of the old pieces is more like that of an egg-shell. Again, few of the antique cloisonné enamels show any transparency, a fact probably due to the oxide of tin in the solder. In recent work the cloisons have, in many instances, been fastened to the metal bases by means of a paste instead of by the soldering method—surely a shifty mode, and one marking the decline of the true excellence of the ancient art.

Rudyard Kipling’s “From Sea to Sea” gives us a careful account of the art of enameling as he saw it practised by the minakari or enamelers of Kyōto. This account is worth looking up. While the work described by Kipling was that of the modern Japanese craftsmen of some thirty years ago, the process was the same as practised in earlier times not only in Japan but likewise in China, and everywhere that cloisonné enamel has been made. The process in use to-day follows the same tradition.

The Koreans probably acquired the art of cloisonné from the Chinese, and the Japanese from the Koreans (perhaps not before the fifteenth century). Captain Brinkley says: “One thing is certain, that until the nineteenth century enamels were employed by Japanese decorators for accessory purposes only on wood and porcelain as well as on metal. No such things as vases, plaques or bowls having their surface covered with enamel in either style.” This at once enables the collector to understand at how late a period, comparatively, cloisonné enamel became popular in Japan. It is believed that early in the nineteenth century a Japanese craftsman, Kaji Tsunekechi, produced the first vessel covered completely with cloisonné in Japan. This was at Nagoya. It won him great fame and many pupils. The earlier pieces of Japanese cloisonné followed in pattern, to a great extent, the Chinese enamels, and though they are somewhat less fine in color, they often excel in technique. Until 1890 the cloisons of Japanese work were soldered to the metal. Since that date a vegetable gum has often been employed for the purpose. In some modern work there appears to be no evidence of cloisons whatsoever, but some of these pieces have hidden cloisons. The Japanese cloisonné objects are usually enameled on the back or on the inside with blue enamel Tōkyō, Yokohama, and Kyōto are the main sources of the modern product.

Thirty years ago Louis Gonse, a French authority, wrote that the Japanese had done little in cloisonné,