“European merchants often order from the Chinese workers porcelain plaques to form the top of a table, or back of a chair, or frame of a picture. These works are impossible: the greatest length and width of a plate is about one foot. If they are made larger than that, no matter how thick, they bend.... The history of _King te ching_ speaks of divers works ordered by Emperors that workmen tried vainly to execute.... The Mandarins of this province presented a petition to the Emperor begging him to have the attempts cease.... However, the Mandarins who know how ingenious Europeans are in invention, have sometimes asked me to have new and curious designs sent from Europe in order to have something singular made for presentation to the Emperor. On the other hand, the Christians strongly urged me not to procure such models, for the Mandarins are not so readily satisfied as our merchants are when the workmen tell them that a work is impracticable; and frequently the bastinado is liberally bestowed before the Mandarin abandons a design from which he has promised himself great advantages. “We should not be astonished that porcelain is so dear in Europe: we shall be still less so when we learn that besides the great profits taken by the European merchants and by their Chinese agents, it is rarely that a baking is entirely successful; sometimes indeed it is a total failure. Thus for one workman who grows rich, there are a hundred ruined; but this does not deter them from tempting Fortune.... Moreover, the porcelain that is sent to Europe is almost always made on new and often strange models in which success is difficult. However slight the blemishes may be it is rejected by the Europeans, who will not take any but perfect pieces; so that it remains in the hands of the workmen, who are not able to sell it to the Chinese because it is not to their taste. The consequence is that the pieces that are taken bear the additional charge of those that are rejected. “According to the history of _King te ching_, the profits were formerly much greater than they are now. It is hard to believe this, for there must then have been a great sale of porcelain in Europe. I have said that the difficulty in executing certain models sent from Europe is one of the causes of the excessive price of porcelain, for it must not be imagined that the workmen can work on all the models that reach them from foreign countries. There are some impracticable ones in China, just as there are some made that astonish foreigners who would not think them possible.” The price of china-ware fluctuated considerably during the seventeenth century. Sometimes a critic complained, as above, that values had greatly appreciated because of the demand, and then again others wailed that the enormous importations had driven prices down till the game was not worth the candle. In Mendelslo’s _Voyages_ (1639), we read: