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21
[[underline]] M. KOECHLIN [[/underline]] A letter of introduction to M. Koechlin, President of the "Amis du Louvre" and Director of the "Musee des Arts Decoratifs", gave me a glimpse of his private collection in which objects from the Far East were an important part.  It was remarkable, not for its size or scope, but for the perfection of the examples which it included.  Although claiming no specialist's knowledge of Oriental art, M. Koechlin had collected an undoubted Chow bronze, a good T'ang mirror, two extremely rare Yuan lacquers, numerous specimens of the work of the very best Japanese potters and eight or ten examples of Japanese lacquer.  This Japanese lacquer, though I saw at most only a dozen pieces, was of the rarest types, including a box of the Fujiwara period, four or five of the Ashikaga and two unsigned works of the Koyetsu school which were masterpieces.  I was much interested in a remarkable bronze figure from Burma of a kneeling monk, and a fine red lacquer box which I was able to identify as Luchuan, probably of the seventeenth century.
[[underline]] THE [[/underline]] Owing to the fact that the section of Oriental [[underline]] LOUVRE [[/underline]] art in the Musee du Louvre was opened only at irregular intervals during my visit to Paris, I had but two opportunities to study the collections.  The contents of the Grandidier collection is too well known through various publications to need comment here, and I spent little time over it as I knew that it was composed for the most part of objects dating from periods which can not claim a large part of our attention. 
The finds made by M. Pelliot at the cave of T'ung Huan, however, were of great significance for our purpose.