that Bushell in the other passage was influenced by the statement in the _T’ung ya_ that it was a furnace transmutation piece, a statement probably based on the superstition that it was a miraculous likeness of the goddess, who herself descended into the kiln and moulded its features. As to the other temple tradition, that it was made in the thirteenth century, it is not necessary to take that any more seriously than the myth concerning its miraculous origin, which derives from the same source. It is hardly necessary to state that all the existing specimens of this class (and they are fairly numerous) do not belong to the Hsüan Tê period. Indeed, it is unlikely that more than a very small percentage of them were made in this short reign. Whether the style survived the Ming dynasty is an open question; but it is safe to assume that it was largely used in the sixteenth century. The discussion of this group of polychrome porcelain leads naturally to the vexed question of the introduction of enamel painting over the glaze. By the latter I mean the painting of designs on the finished white glaze in vitrifiable enamels, which were subsequently fixed in the gentle heat of the muffle kiln (_lu_)--_couleurs de petit feu_, as the French have named them. No help can be got from the phraseology of the Chinese, for they use _wu ts’ai_ or _wu sê_ (lit. five colours) indifferently for all kinds of polychrome decoration, regardless of the number of colours involved or the mode of application. There is, however, no room for doubt that the delicate enamel painting, for which the reign of Ch’êng Hua (1465–1487) was celebrated, was executed with the brush over the fired glaze. It is inconceivable that the small, eggshell wine cups with peony flowers and a hen and chicken “instinct with life and movement” could have been limned by any other method. If this is the case, then what could the Chinese writers mean when they contrasted the _wu ts’ai_ ornament of the Hsüan Tê and Ch’êng Hua periods, but that the same process of painting was in use in both reigns? The Ch’êng Hua colours were more artistic because they were thin and delicately graded, while the Hsüan Tê _wu ts’ai_ were too thickly applied.[45] For this reason, if for no other, we may rightly infer that painting in on-glaze enamels was practised in the Hsüan Tê period, if, indeed, it had not been long in use.[46]