Page 459 - Oriental Series Japan and China, Brinkly

CHINESE PORCELAIN IN WEST

Hecriticisms. 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 to-
day presented by the cabinets of a modern collector.

A new current has recently set in from these coun-

tries to ours. It has unveiled enamels that we pre-

viously 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-a-brac. But

America's requirements proved yearly more pressing,
and as the means of meeting them grew necessarily less

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