John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[504] painting, Dana had the most intense admiration. In 18SO he built a large and commodious residence at the corner of Madison Avenue and Sixtieth Street, and his first care was to decorate and embellish it with paintings, tapestries, and porcelains.

But the form of art to which Dana gave the greatest attention was Chinese porcelain. To this, from the day it first attracted his notice, he devoted much of his spare time, and continued to do so with unabated interest throughout life. When it is considered that there were but few amateurs of similar predilection, and only one important collection in the United States--that of Mr. Walters, of Baltimore-before Dana began making his, it will be seen that his taste for this fascinating branch of ceramics was based upon an inbred artistic sense, and not upon a factitious or transitory fancy. His collection gradually developed into one of great brilliancy and interest, and contained many perfect examples of the potter's art as practised in the Far East from its earliest days to the period of its decadence. It contained several of the most noted specimens of peachblow, a large number of sang de boeuf and other rare and beautiful monochromes, and a bewildering assortment of decorated pieces of every shade and combination and of every classic form and every quality of paste, from the archaic celadon to the more modern and more beautiful blue and white, from the tiny snuff-bottle to the stately hawthorn vase, from the delicate egg-shell cup to the radiant ginger-pot of bleu de ciel. It was a harmonious assortment of decorative colors and graceful forms, which appealed to the owner's sense of proportion and of beauty, and blessed his leisure hours with ever-varying combinations to the end of his life.

In addition to many Chinese pieces, it contained a .smaller number of early Korean, Japanese, Persian, and Moorish pieces, combined to illustrate the evolution of