Note 433 — Chapter XIII · CH’IEN LUNG (1736–1795)

, yu hsin shih, lit. “also he newly made.” This is undoubtedly the sense given by the Chinese original, and Julien renders it “il avait nouvellement mis en œuvre.” Bushell, on the other hand, translates: “He also made porcelain decorated with the various coloured glazes newly invented,” a reading which makes the word chih do duty twice over, and leaves it doubtful whether T’ang was the inventor of these types of decoration or merely the user of them. Both the grammar and the balance of the sentences in the original are against this colourless rendering.