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.