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68

HONGKONG

Being in haste to reach the French School at Hanoi, while the season was at its best, I went directly from Peking to Hongkong, stopping but a single night at Shanghai on the way. Finding that the boats from Hongkong to Haiphong, of which I had been able to get no time tables, ply at irregular intervals I was forced to spend five days at Hongkong where there were several things of interest in spite of the fact that the important collection of Mr. Chun Ch'ik Yu (alias Chun Tong) at Macao was not available for examination and had to be left to the return trip.

Mr. Saito, a Japanese dealer and traveler to whom Mr. Freer had given me an introduction, showed me a few interesting Chinese porcelains and a large bronze Buddhist statue of the Sung period remarkable in technique. He made arrangements to introduce me to Mr. Chi who showed two important examples of Sung [[underline]]Chun Yao [[\underline]] numbered seven and ten on the bottoms. (1) 

[[underline]]K'UAN CH'OU POTTERY [[\underline]]
The collection of Mr. Chi offered an excellent opportunity to study the ware known as [[underline]] K'uan Ch'ou [[\underline]] which, so far as I am aware, has been insufficiently brought to the attention of collectors in the West.

(1) Mr. Chi's opinion concerning the significance of the numbers on [[underline]]Chun [[\underline]] ware was the only one among Chinese collectors consulted which coincided with that of Mr. Eumorphopoulos of London, i.e. that they indicate gradation in size from 1 on the largest to 10 on the smallest. I have since been informed that measurements taken by Mr. Freer and Mr. Peters from the great mass of examples compared at the late exhibition in New York do not tend to bear this out.

Transcription Notes:
8/13/14 there are marks over the name Chun twice, I do not have the ability to place them.