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Alphonse Salvétat, in his preface to M. Stanislas Julien's Histoire et Fabrication de la Porcelaine Chinoise, are of much interest. "Variety," he writes, "of fonds colorés de grand feu has made the reputation of Chinese porcelain quite as much, perhaps, as originality of decoration and rich harmony of painting. The analyses which I have been able to make of these colours, as well as the syntheses which I have tried, justify me in regarding as tolerably exact the greater part of the recipes given in Chinese books, at any rate in the case of those where the synonyms are easily found. Some of the Chinese colours de grand feu have not been as yet reproduced on European porcelains. I may cite specially the clear, bluish green colour known as céladon, so much sought after by amateurs, and the reds, sometimes orange, sometimes bordering upon violet, which owe their colour to protoxide of copper. These tints are of great delicacy and brilliancy. It would be a matter of real interest to reproduce them for use on our porcelains. But this is not the place to give recipes which render their production probable, perhaps possible. It is to be regretted that the detailed instructions given by M. Bronginart, at different epochs, to travellers setting out for China, or the letters which I have myself addressed to persons living in that distant country, have not brought us more complete ideas upon this subject than those acquired by examining or analysing pieces which we have been permitted to study. The want of isolated materials and their absence in either a crude or prepared form, as they were furnished by the consignment of Père Ly, so far as concerns decorations in couleurs de moufle induce us to think, as has been often said, that those