[65] How this iron red was manipulated, apparently at a transition period, so as to obtain an effect approaching that of the _rouge d’or_, is described on page 162. [66] A ruby-red can be obtained by careful manipulation from gold alone. We may regard the addition of tin as a convenient method of developing the colour which was apparently known to the mediæval alchemists. [67] It would be a point of special interest to determine the date when these two colours--the pink (used as a ground) and the opaque turquoise blue--were first used in China. Their presence together with the lemon-yellow gives perhaps the first note of a period of decline. There is in the British Museum a bowl and saucer covered on the outside with this rose enamel and bearing this unusual inscription--‘the _Sin-chou_ year occurring again.’ This expression was referred by Franks to the sixty-first year of the reign of Kang-he, when the cyclical year in which his reign began recurred again, an unprecedented fact in Chinese history. In the same collection is a saucer-shaped plate with a pale pink ground with the mark of the period Yung-cheng. But the evidence in favour of a somewhat later date for the fully developed use of the _rouge d’or_ seems to me fairly strong. Dr. Bushell, however, tells me that he has seen other examples where the same inscription is found upon ware decorated with the _rouge d’or_, and that he accepts the early date (1722) on the Sin-chou plate. I return to this question on page 136. [68] Julien omitted this curious passage in his translation as devoid of interest! [69] There are two magnificent vases of the black lacquered ware, each about eight feet high, in the Musée Guimet, and of the brown variety a well-preserved spherical bowl may be seen at South Kensington. [70] The snuff-bottles of the Chinese represent the _inro_ of the Japanese. Both were originally used for pills and for eye medicine. [71] Dr. Bushell tells us that she is an accomplished artist and calligraphist, and that her autograph signature is much valued. She is said to have sent down from the palace, to be copied at King-te-chen, bowls and dishes of the time of Kien-lung, just as that emperor in his day forwarded from Pekin examples of Sung and Ming wares with the same object. So the old tradition is kept up! [72] These references are to the plates of marks at the end of the book. [73] See, however, p. 110 note, for a curious instance of its use. [74] A good example of a date-mark of Wan-li in this position may be seen on the vase reproduced on PL. VII. Fig. 2. [75] Why, by the way, do we find, in catalogues otherwise well edited, porcelain ascribed to the Kang-he _dynasty_? One might as well speak of the Louis XIV. dynasty. [76] At least such was the case when the Canal was in working order. For some time since, the Grand Canal has only been navigable _when the country is flooded_.