I shall now devote a short chapter to the glass made in Asia, that is to say in Persia, in India, and in China, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

This later Asiatic glass, though so thoroughly Oriental in character, can as a whole scarcely be regarded as a product of strictly indigenous growth, for in nearly all cases the technique of the manufacture, in some indeed the materials and even the ‘metal’ itself, can be traced back to Europe. It is for this reason that I have reserved its treatment to this late stage.

We are fortunate in possessing in the Oriental galleries at South Kensington, as well as in the British Museum, a comparatively rich series of examples of this later Oriental glass, not a few of them of great beauty and interest. As a class it can probably be studied nowhere so well as in London.

The Chinese glass of the eighteenth century is above all of interest to us, for upon it more than upon anything else is based the only new departure in the treatment of the material that the nineteenth century can lay claim to—the ‘New Glass,’ I mean, that has taken so important a place of late among the minor art products of France. It is therefore not altogether illogical that this glass of the Far East should find a place in our history between the English glass of the eighteenth century and that now being made in France.

The glorious enamelled glass of the Saracens, of which I have given some account in a former chapter, was already a thing of the past before the end of the fifteenth century. This was at least the case in Syria and Egypt, where alone the art as we know it had flourished. I have attributed this sudden decline, as regards the first country, to the invasion of Timur early in the century. On this occasion a whole army of craftsmen was transferred, it is said, from Damascus to Timur’s new capital at Samarkand. In Egypt the narrow-minded fanaticism of the later MemlÛk Sultans and the troubles that preceded the Turkish conquest were doubtless factors in the artistic decline. As far as the Mohammedan East is concerned, there is thus an obscure period in our history extending to the end of the sixteenth century for which there is little or nothing to show. Glass of some sort doubtless continued to be made in Syria, and perhaps in Egypt, but little that is distinctive or of artistic interest was produced.

When we again come upon specimens of Oriental glass, it is no longer in the Mediterranean countries but in Persia, and to a less extent in Northern India, that we find them. Not only so, but the glass that we now have to deal with is of an entirely different character. With a few rare exceptions, the thick jewel-like enamels of the Syro-Egyptian school are now as much a thing of the past as the carved glass of a still earlier time.

The Persian Glass of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is, as a whole, thin and transparent, either simply blown or in part moulded. In spite of the purely Oriental character of the outlines of this glass, the influence of Venetian methods in the preparation and modes of working is in most cases apparent. As I have said, it would be out of the question to treat of this later Oriental glass, little of which is probably earlier than the seventeenth century, before we had acquired some knowledge of the renaissance glass of Italy.

Whether Timur or his successors succeeded in establishing the Syrian glass industry in the Khanates of Turkestan we do not know. There is a vague tradition that in the fifteenth century the glass of Samarkand was the finest in the East. It is, however, to a much later time that the earliest specimens of what I may call the Veneto-Persian family of glass belong—to the time of the Sufi dynasty in Persia and to that of the Moguls in Northern India.

Of Persian glass there indeed still exist a few rare examples which may perhaps date from an earlier time. I have already referred (p. 172) to the little drinking-bowl of honey-coloured glass in the British Museum decorated with enamels of good quality—turquoise, red and white (Plate XXVII. 1). The figure of an angel upon it is thoroughly Persian in character; not only in the enamels, but in the horny quality of the honey-coloured metal, this little bowl closely resembles the spherical lamp ornament mentioned on p. 156, that has very properly been placed beside it on the shelf of the Museum.

Among the few pieces of later Oriental glass in the Slade collection is a small covered bowl, probably of Persian origin, with a formal design of iris and other flowers. In spite of the somewhat modern air of this bowl, due perhaps to the solid and rather crude gilding, the thick, semi-transparent enamels, blue and pale green, take us back to the earlier Saracenic work.

But such examples are quite exceptional. As a rule, on the glass brought back from Persia—there is quite a large collection at South Kensington and a few choice pieces in the British Museum—the enamelling, if present at all, is of the poorest description—it belongs essentially to our ‘painted’ class. This enamelled decoration, as on some little bottles at South Kensington, appears to be but a rude imitation of the floral patterns that we see, for example, on the lacquered bindings of Persian books.

On the other hand, the tall-necked flasks of thin glass—scent-sprinklers and wine-bottles—give proof of considerable manipulative skill (Plate XLVII.). To judge by the patterns in low relief on the sides, many of these vases, in spite of the thinness of the glass, must have been blown into a mould. The tall neck ends either in a flat-spreading lip or is bent over into that characteristic Persian form—not unlike the head of a bird with large beak—of which we may see an imitation or at least a kindred shape in certain Venetian double-necked cruets. At one time a fashion prevailed of fitting into the interior of these thin flasks elaborate bouquets of flowers built up with coloured enamels of opaque glass, a somewhat childish fancy, reflecting the weaker side of later Persian art.

Of more interest is the ruder glass, often decorated with a profusion of appliquÉ strips, quilled and worked up with the pincers. In such examples we are strikingly reminded both of a class of peasant glass from the South of Spain, and again of the late Roman glass from the Rhine and other districts.

On the other hand, certain bowls and vases of deep blue glass, decorated with floral designs in a solid gilding, have an almost unpleasantly modern air. A pair of vases so decorated, now in the British Museum, came, however, from the Strawberry Hill collection, and they may well date from the early eighteenth century.

Finally, I will mention a remarkable variety of glass worked generally into the form of tall, thin-necked flasks; within the greenish transparent metal float irregular masses of an opaque deep red. We have here, in fact, the elements of which the famous Chinese glazes—the flambÉ and the sang-de-boeuf—are made up. As in these glazes, so in this case in the glass, the effect doubtless depends on the partial reduction of the incorporated copper-oxide.

I should add that engraved glass seems never to have found much favour with the Persians. On the few specimens that we have in our collections—they are decorated with birds and flowers rudely ground on the wheel—the work is of the poorest description.

I have so far taken it for granted that the bulk of this glass is of comparatively modern origin, and I have found confirmation for this opinion in the close relation of so much of it to the glass made at Murano in the seventeenth century. Still more definite evidence is, however, at hand, as the following passage from the travels of Sir John Chardin will show.^[266]

‘There are Glass-Houses all over Persia, but most of the Glass is full of Flaws and Bladders and is Greyish from the account doubtless that the Fire lasts but three or four days, and that their Deremne as they call it, which is a sort of Broom, which they use to make it, does not bear heat so well as ours. The Glass of Chiras is the finest in the Country; that of Ispahan on the contrary is the sorriest, because it is only glass melted again. They make it commonly in Spring. They do not understand to Silver their Glass over, therefore their Glass Looking-glasses are brought from Venise, as also their sash glasses [glaces de chÂssis] and their pretty Snuff-Bottles. Moreover, the Art of Glass-making was brought into Persia within these last four score Years. A Beggarly and Covetous Italian taught it at Chiras for the sum of fifty Crowns. Had I not been informed of the matter, I should have thought that they had been beholded to the Portuguese for their Skill in so noble and so useful an Art. I ought not to forget to acquaint you with the Persian Art of Sowing Glass together very ingeniously, ... for provided the Pieces be not smaller than one’s Nail, they sow them together with Wyre and rub the seam over with a little white Lead or with calcined Lime, mixed with White of Egg, which hinders the water from soaking thro. Among their Sentences there is a goodly one relating to the ingenious piece of work just mentioned: If broken glass be restored again, how much more may Man be restored again after his Dissolution in the Grave?’

Closely connected with this Persian glass is the deep amber or honey-coloured glass, said to have been made in the island of Rhodes. A small collection of rudely executed bottles, pilgrims’ flasks and bowls, obtained in that island and in Cyprus, may be seen at South Kensington; they are there ascribed to the sixteenth century, I do not know on what grounds. These little vessels are all of the simplest shapes, such as could be formed directly from the paraison at the end of the blowing-iron, without removing the glass to the pontil. Some small hand-grenades of greenish black or of opaque jasper glass in the British Museum, come for the most part from Cyprus.

I may here say a word of the glass still in use in the Mohammedan East. At the present day the glass-works at Hebron, which I have already more than once mentioned, supply most of the common native glass in use both in Egypt and Syria^[267]—of that of European origin there is no need to speak. Edward Lane describes the small conical lamps of thin glass ‘having a little tube at the bottom in which is stuck a wick twisted round a piece of straw.’ This is an old type of lamp that I have dwelt upon in a former chapter. Perhaps the most interesting form of glass vessel now in use in Cairo and Damascus is the covered sherbet-jug or bowl—the Kulleh. I have before me an example from Cairo made of a nearly opaque white glass, decorated with floral designs rudely painted on and perhaps not fired. Where this glass is made I do not know. We may perhaps regard the ware as a survival of the lattimo of the early eighteenth century (cf. Lane, Modern Egyptians, 1842, vol. i. p. 224).

Indian Glass.—The classical writers had a tradition that the best glass in the world was made in India, thanks above all to the use of a pure rock crystal in the manufacture. There are some vague references to glass in the later Sanscrit literature, and in one of the older, but not the oldest, of the Hindu books, a distinction is made between a vessel of glass and one made of crystal. But it would be useless to search in the Hindustan of to-day for any examples of so early a date. Apart from a few beads which may be assigned to Buddhist times,^[268] I can point to no examples of Indian glass of earlier date than the Mogul dynasty. It is to that period—hardly, indeed, before the later seventeenth century—that we must attribute certain remarkable examples of glass, found for the most part in Delhi, which are now in the Indian Department at South Kensington. There may be seen an example of enamelled glass of great beauty (Plate XLVIII.). This is a vase of somewhat milky glass with spreading mouth, some eleven inches in diameter; it is described as a washing-basin; the gilt ground is semÉ with little white flowers, each with a red pistil. Of no less interest are the two hookah-bases of engraved white glass. On these the technique of the engraved work—but not the Oriental design of conventional flowers—much resembles that of the Bohemian cut-glass; there are no incised lines, and the oval depressions representing the leaves are carefully polished. Unlike the engraved glass of Persia, the work shows signs of a complete mastery of the process. It will be noticed that in the case of one of these vessels the clear cristallo is unchanged, while in the other the glass is, as it were, frosted, apparently by the incipient decay of the surface. In the same case may be seen some tall vases of thin white glass, of a type very similar to the Persian sprinklers. These also come from Northern India.

It would be useless to search for an early native origin for work of this kind. Were it, however, possible to find in India any glass that we could connect with the Turki Khanates of Bokhara and Samarkand, the old homes of the Mogul family, we should thereby be provided with a connecting link that would not unlikely carry us back to the Syrian enamelled glass of the fourteenth century (see above, p. 168). But nothing of the kind, as far as I know, has so far turned up in Hindustan. On the whole, this Mogul glass, in spite of the exceptional artistic and technical qualities of the specimens just described, belongs to that bastard school of Saracenic art that is prevalent generally in the north of India. Its artistic parentage may probably be traced back to Venice by way of Persia. Equally Persian in character are the four-sided bottles painted with figures and flowers, somewhat in the style of the Cashmiri lacquer. A remarkable series of little flasks of this character, formerly in the Marryat collection, may be seen in the Indian Department at South Kensington, where, however, they are described as ‘Indo-Dutch.’

It is certainly disappointing to find in India such a total absence of native glass with any claim to antiquity. But some consolation may be derived from the discovery—for discovery it may be called—made not many years ago, that in more than one part of Hindustan, native craftsmen were turning out vessels of glass by a strangely primitive method. Sir Purdon Clarke, who has always had at heart the maintenance of the native industries of the country on the old lines, tells me that this modern Indian glass was first noticed at Calcutta, and with some difficulty traced to Patna. Here, by the most primitive methods, the native workmen were turning out among other things imitations of European lamp-glasses. The furnace consisted of a series of elaborate passages hidden beneath a heap of ashes. These chambers were originally formed by a scaffolding of cardboard frames which, when the arrangement was completed, were set on fire.

Somewhat more ambitious are the furnaces which Mr. H. C. Dobbs found in use in the neighbourhood of Benares and Lucknow (Journal of Indian Art, vol. vii.). The material here employed was either imported or ‘country’ glass, but we are not told how the latter was prepared. The little circular ovens, less than five feet in height, are rudely built up of clay; there are two cylindrical chambers back to back, each of two stories, but of the four compartments thus formed three are devoted to the gradual cooling of the wares. It seems doubtful whether in these furnaces the glass is ever thoroughly melted, and though use is certainly made, in a primitive way, of the blowing-tube, the method of working resembles rather the treatment of a piece of iron in the blacksmith’s forge. The glass is constantly reheated and patted and pressed.^[269] We are, indeed, reminded of the preparation of the Egyptian glass of the Eighteenth Dynasty, as interpreted by Dr. Petrie (cf. p. 22). How far the Indian glass-maker in his methods of work is carrying on an old native tradition, or how far he is merely adapting what he has learned from Persian or European glass-blowers to the exigencies of his surroundings, I must leave an open question. I think, however, that in nearly all cases his starting-point is either with a mass of imported ‘metal,’ or with fragments of broken glass.

In the Indian Department at South Kensington may be seen a most remarkable collection of this native glass, obtained in part from Patna and in part from Hoshiarpur, in the Punjab.^[270] This glass is of the greatest interest and should be closely examined. It is for the most part of various shades of blue and green, but these shades seem to be due to copper rather than to iron; at least we do not meet with the well-known olive greens derived from the latter metal. But the most striking peculiarity—the charm, I may say—of this glass is due to the presence of minute bubbles, so numerous and closely packed that the glass is little better than translucent. To the presence of these bubbles is also due the peculiar waxy aspect of the surface, and this with the irregular outline lends to this simple ware a plastic appearance as if moulded by the hand. Some use is made also of an opaque yellow glass, and among the examples from Patna are some decorated with bands of lattimo. The shapes call for no special comment: I will only point to certain curious little scorpion-shaped scent-bottles with twisted tails, and to the large torque bangles, as worthy of notice. Of greater interest is the primitive arrangement for distilling—a combination of aludel and alembic that calls to mind the illustrations to the Syriac manuscripts that I have mentioned in a former chapter. Perhaps the principal charm of this native Indian glass arises from the violent contrast that it affords to the impeccable cristallo and to the flint-glass that have tyrannised over us so long in Europe. It is beginning at length to dawn upon us that there are other qualities than absolute transparency and absence of colour to be looked for in our material, and it is the attempt to bring these qualities into prominence that has led to the development in France within the last few years of quite a new treatment of glass.

Glass in China.^[271]—There are frequent references in Chinese literature to a substance called liu-li, which the best authorities tell us may be regarded as a more or less opaque variety of glass. This liu-li is, in the old books, always closely associated with rock crystal and jade, and was, indeed, like these stones, classed among the ‘seven precious things’; we also find it described as ‘thousand year old ice.’ When towards the end of the first century of our era an attempt was made by the emperors of the Han dynasty to establish commercial relations with the Roman West, this liu-li was one of the substances most sought after. The Chinese of this time were, it would seem, acquainted with the Roman Empire, but probably only with the eastern provinces. The Ta-tsin of their early writers has been identified by Dr. Hirth with Syria, and its capital Antu with Antioch: in these parts at that time they would have had no difficulty in obtaining the glass that they were in search of. It is indeed not impossible that it may have been this new and exotic material that first turned their attention to the glazing of their pottery, for it is doubtful if they were acquainted with the process before this time.

Again, in the fifth century some merchants who visited North-west India are said to have learned there the secrets of glass-making, and on their return to China to have produced liu-li of all colours by the smelting of various minerals. Once more, in the thirteenth century, we hear of glass being made by the melting together of certain stones and drugs, and the word po-li—the name given generally to transparent glass, in opposition to the more or less opaque liu-li—is now used for the first time.

On the other hand, in the annals of the Sui dynasty (581-617) we are told that China had long lost the art of making glass, but that a high official of the court succeeded at that time in fashioning vessels of green porcelain that could not be distinguished from liu-li (Bushell, Chinese Ceramic Art, p. 20). The inference that we must draw from these contradictory statements is probably that, in spite of many assertions to the contrary,^[272] the art of glass-making was never thoroughly acclimatised in China till much later times. And this conclusion is confirmed by the total absence in our collections of any examples of glass of native manufacture that can be referred to a date earlier than the eighteenth century.^[273] For although we know that after the return of Marco Polo both the Venetians and Genoese found in China a market for their beads, if not for more important objects of glass, and that early in the fifteenth century specimens of Saracenic enamelled glass found their way to the Chinese ports, the evidence that any true glass was at that time made in China is of the vaguest character.^[274]

When we come to the eighteenth century we are on firmer ground. Before the end of the seventeenth century glass-works had been established under the superintendence of the Jesuit missionaries, within the precincts of the Imperial Palace at Pekin. At a later time, not long after the accession of Kien-lung (1735-1795), we hear of a famous glass-worker, one Hu.^[275] This Hu was a craftsman in the Imperial glass-works, and there made both ‘a clear glass of greenish tint with an embossed decoration executed in coloured glass, and an opaque white glass which was either engraved with etched designs or decorated in colours’ (Bushell, Oriental Ceramic Art, p. 400). It is a significant fact that though the emperor much admired the glass of Hu, his first thought was to have it imitated in porcelain, the more noble material.

Let us now turn to the specimens of Chinese glass that we find in our museums. What is probably the largest and most representative collection in Europe is now in the Museum of Industrial Art at Berlin. Here are more than four hundred examples brought together by the care of Herr von Brandt, formerly German minister at Pekin.^[276] Smaller but representative collections of Chinese glass may be seen both at South Kensington and in the British Museum.

On a few of these pieces is found the date-mark—the nien-hao—of the reigning emperor engraved on the base. As far as I am aware, the earliest mark so found is that of Yung-Ching (1722-1735), on a vase in the Berlin Museum. The name of Kia-King (1795-1821) has also been noted, but by far the most frequent mark is that of Kien-lung (1735-1795), of whom I have already spoken in connection with Hu of ‘the ancient moon.’ Probably most of our finest specimens of Chinese glass date from the second half of the eighteenth century, and to that period we may no doubt refer a series of magnificent examples of blown glass at South Kensington. These large pieces, of such excellent metal and showing so complete a command of technique, may probably be regarded, in spite of the Arabic inscriptions found on one or two of them, as a result of the teaching of the Jesuit missionaries; they were perhaps made by remelting imported glass. Notice especially the huge bowl or flower-pot with scalloped edge, built up, by some sort of ‘casing’ process, of two layers of glass, the inner, nearly opaque, of pale blue, the outer, dark blue and transparent. This bowl bears the date-mark of Kien-lung and is a triumph of technical skill. Not less remarkable are the two large vases of deep purple glass, bearing on the sides and necks large medallions with Arabic inscriptions in relief on a ground apparently chipped with a tool.^[277] Of even greater interest are the two covered bowls of transparent cobalt glass with a quaint design built up of the smooth Chinese dragon or salamander and of the character for ‘long life.’ The part not engraved is curiously wrinkled or pitted, so as to form a sort of epidermis on the surface—by what means I do not know. The Chinese succeeded in making a yellow glass of a fine deep tint; a variety of this with opaque spots—the ‘rice-grain’ structure—is apparently much prized. Of the mottled red and yellow glass, made it would seem in imitation of tortoise-shell, there are many examples in our collections. We are reminded by it of some of the effects of the flambÉ glazes; the prevailing colour given to this glass is, however, of an orange rather than a blood-red tint (Pl. XLIX. 2).

But in spite of these early technical triumphs, blown glass has always remained something of an exotic in China. To the Chinese mind, glass—a material never held in much esteem—is above all a substance to be employed in the imitation of precious marbles and gems. Lacking itself all classical and literary associations, glass can only find a reflected honour from these more noble substances. With this object in view, the skilled Chinese craftsmen were soon able to produce the most marvellous tours de force, and indeed to develop an entirely new treatment of the material—a method of handling which, at all events since the best Roman times, had been elsewhere completely neglected. Their aim above all was the imitation of jade: half-molten masses of glass, of two or more colours, were worked up and dragged through one another; the glass was then carved into the old traditional forms. Objects of the native stone were thus imitated with the most marvellous accuracy. This was a process much resembling that adopted by the Alexandrian Greeks and the Romans for one class of their agate glass bodies; but the Chinese showed greater restraint in the blending of the colours, and were at greater pains to imitate closely the natural stones. As I have said, the forms taken by this glass follow those into which the Chinese had been wont from time immemorial to carve their jade, their agates, and their milky chalcedonies; but we may note that their carvings in rock crystal were not copied in glass. Besides the little tripod bowls and cups with archaic designs in relief, natural objects were imitated, fruits and flowers especially—the opening calix of the lotus, the ‘Buddha’s hand’ citron, or again the almond-shaped peach, symbol of long life.

We must now turn to the little glass snuff-bottles, in the decoration of which the Chinese carried their original methods to the highest perfection. We have indeed in these the only form of Chinese glass that has found any favour with European collectors.

The lid of these snuff-bottles is often of another material—metal, coral, or carved lac—and to it is attached the little ivory spoon with which the snuff is extracted. I may point out that little flasks of similar shape, made generally of porcelain, the yao-ping or medicine-bottles, have long been in use in China for pills, rare drugs, and eye-medicines. These yao-ping, whether for medicines or for snuff, were often carved out of various stones—the moss-agate and the red and white carnelian were special favourites—and it was above all these many-coloured varieties of the quartz family that were copied in glass, in the first place probably by the above-mentioned Hu. The infinite variety in the technique and in the decoration of these little flasks—this may be seen in any large collection, such as that formed by Mr. Salting^[278]—is at first overwhelming, but most of them will fall under one or other of the following classes:—

1. Snuff-bottles imitating a natural stone, as amianthus, malachite, or chalcedony, formed by the simple interpenetration of masses of glass of different colours. Such bottles are generally not carved on the surface.

2. Those of the nature of an onyx, built up by the superposition of two or more layers of glass of different colours, the under surface being exposed in places by the carving away of the upper layers as in a cameo. We thus get a carnelian red or a deep blue design on a milky white ground. In other cases a jade-green passes by gradation through a pink layer to a pure white. Such an arrangement may be skilfully made use of to obtain a blend of colours on the petals of a lotus or other flower.

3. In this class the superficial colours do not enclose the whole core, but lie scattered on the surface. By this means green, red, blue, and yellow patches, all standing on the same level, may be made use of in the design. In such work we may see the climax of the Chinese technique in this genre, and the result has apparently been brought about by placing these patches of coloured paste on the sides of the mould before the introduction of the core of plain glass. Though this is technically a triumph of ingenuity, the flasks thus decorated are by no means the most beautiful of the series.

Besides these, many other methods of decoration may at times be found on these snuff-bottles; we see elaborate designs painted in enamel on the interior, showing through the transparent glass, or again an opaque paste resembling porcelain may be decorated with colours on the surface. Avanturine glass is probably of late introduction, but spangles (of reduced copper) are sometimes made to appear locally in the clear glass as a golden cloud.^[279]

We know little of the source or of the composition of the glass used by the Chinese. Some of it was made in Pekin, but the province of Shantung seems to have long been the centre of the glass manufacture.^[280] Here were made the little bricks of coloured glass (four inches by twelve and two inches in thickness)—the Po-li-chuan—which were sold to the glass-workers and enamellers in Pekin and elsewhere. These glass bricks were at one time imitated in Bohemia with the special object of supplying the Chinese markets—the imitations were known in the trade as pomana. As to the materials from which the native glass was made, there is little or no available information. We are told incidentally that it was compounded by fusing a certain rock with saltpetre.^[281] This statement, and the fact of the use of imported ‘metal’ from Bohemia, make it probable that the glass belongs on the whole to the potash family. So again, the Chinese have long been acquainted with lead fluxes and enamels, and it was doubtless this experience that enabled them to command such a surprising range of colours in the glasses with which they built up their little snuff-bottles. We shall then probably not be wrong in regarding the glass of these bottles as of the potash-lead family.^[282]

Finally, we may say of this Chinese glass that it can lay claim to a prominent and distinct place in any general history such as this, on the ground not only of the originality of its technique, but also because of the influence which, as I have already pointed out, it has had of late years upon the ‘new glass’ of France.

The position of Japan with regard to glass is a unique one. It is perhaps the only country that in past or present times has taken an important place in the world of art where the use of glass, whether for practical or Æsthetic purposes, has remained almost absolutely unknown. I make this statement, of course, of the country as it was before the late revolution. Nowadays the art of glass-making, like other Western arts, is practised with some success, but without, I think, any original developments which would call for notice. The name they have for glass—bidoro—is evidently derived from the Spanish vidrio, or the Portuguese vidro. But the Japanese never appear to have taken even that sporadic interest in the material that they showed for other exotic productions that at times filtered in from the West.

What I have said applies to feudal and recent times. If, however, one goes back to the period that preceded the dawn of Japanese history, one finds that plain beads of clear glass, both blue and white, have been discovered in the dolmen tombs.^[283] Examples of these beads may be seen in the Gowland collection in the British Museum. Again, in the famous Shoso In Treasury at Nara are two vessels of glass:—(1) a shallow bowl of transparent green glass, carved in relief with a design of fishes and water-plants; (2) a cup of white glass, carefully executed, the surface carved with a diaper pattern made up of shallow hexagonal hollows. There is no reason to doubt the well-authenticated record that these glass bowls were deposited with the rest of the collection by the Emperor Shomu in the year 756 of our era. There are in the same Shoso In, and in other Imperial collections among objects dating from this time, examples of metal ware and of silk brocade that show evidence of a Western Asiatic, probably Sassanian, origin. These and other objects that are undoubtedly of an exotic origin may perhaps many of them have been presents from the Chinese emperors on the occasion of embassies from Japan. It is certainly a fact that in the previous century the sons and retainers of the last Sassanian ruler of Persia had fled before the Arab invaders and taken refuge with the Chinese court, bringing with them such treasure as they had been able to save from the general wreck. This fact may give a hint as to the origin of the Shoso In glass. At any rate, in China at this period there is no evidence of any skill in glass-working.