[24] In Persia, where for three centuries at least the Chinese wares have been known and imitated, the word _chini_ has almost the same connotation. See below for a discussion of the route by which this word reached England. [25] During the eighteenth century, however, the French missionaries remained in friendly relation with the Chinese court, especially with the Emperor Kien-lung, a man of culture and a poet. The Père Amiot sent home not only letters with valuable information, but from time to time presents of porcelain from the emperor. He was in correspondence with the minister Bertin, who was himself a keen collector of porcelain. See the notes in the Catalogue of Bertin’s sale, Paris, 1815. [26] Thanks to the industry of the present curator, Herr Zimmermann, the same may now be said of the great collection at Dresden. [27] For a discussion, and for many illustrations of the art of these early dynasties which survives chiefly in objects of jade or bronze, see Paléologue, _Art Chinois_, Paris, 1887. [28] The wild statements as to the transparency, above all, of the Sung and even the Tang porcelain may, however, appear to receive some confirmation from the reports of the old Arab travellers. But how much credence we can give to these authorities may be gleaned from a description of the fayence of Egypt, by a Persian traveller of the eleventh century. ‘This ware of Misr,’ he says, ‘is so fine and diaphanous that the hand may be seen through it when it is applied to the side of the vessel.’ He is speaking not of porcelain, but of a silicious glazed earthenware! [29] _Pekin Oriental Society_, 1886; see also Bushell’s _Ceramic Art_, p. 132 seq. [30] See the passage in his _History_ (chapter ix.) where this stern censor, referring to the passion for collecting china, rebukes the ‘frivolous and inelegant fashion’ for ‘these grotesque baubles.’ [31] The name Céladon first occurs in the _Astrée_, the once famous novel of Honoré D’Urfé. When later in the seventeenth century Céladon, the courtier-shepherd, was introduced on the stage, he appeared in a costume of greyish green, which became the fashionable colour of the time, and his name was transferred to the Chinese porcelain with a glaze of very similar colour, which was first introduced into France about that period. [32] Julien translated the word _ching_ as blue, an unfortunate rendering in this case, which has been the cause of much confusion. He was so far justified in this, in that the same word is used by the Chinese for the cobalt blue of our ‘blue and white,’ while it was not applied by them to a pronounced green tint. [33] I shall return to this point when treating of English porcelain. [34] Somewhat later the Chinese were for a time neighbours of the Sassanian empire, where the arts of glazing pottery and making glass were highly developed. Sassanian bronzes, and probably textiles, have found their way to Japan.