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『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

834 PICTORIAL REMAINS FROM THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS [Chap. XXIII

combined enthusiastic devotion to Far-Eastern art as a critic, connoisseur, and collector with serious Sinologue studies begun under such a master as M. Chavannes. The series of important publications bearing on the art of China and Japan which issued in rapid succession from the pen of this highly gifted savant 6 bear eloquent testimony to his eminent fitness for what was bound to prove a difficult task. After a prolonged series of visits to the collection in the autumn of 1911 M. Petrucci expressed his willingness to take up the systematic study of our pictorial relics from the ` Thousand Buddhas ', the results to be embodied mainly in an extensive Appendix to the present work. I accepted this gratifying offer with deep relief and satisfaction. The task which M. Petrucci had set himself and the exhaustive plan upon which he proposed to effect it were lucidly set forth in a memorandum which he addressed to me on November 16, 191 I, and which will be found reproduced below.?

During the following two years M. Petrucci devoted protracted labours to the task, closely studying the paintings and their inscriptions in the originals or in photographic reproductions specially prepared for his use. He also collected voluminous extracts from Chinese Buddhist texts likely to throw light on their iconographic purport. As a first result of these studies he was able to supply me in 1913 with the draft of his introductory chapter on the votive inscriptions and the antiquarian information to be gleaned from them.' About the same time or early in 1914 he discussed in a separate essay those elaborate compositions, or ` Mandalas', which form the subject of some of the largest and artistically most interesting paintings in the collection.' In addition to the above, M. Petrucci had succeeded in collecting a great mass of textual materials from the Chinese Buddhist Canon for the identification of Jâtaka scenes, individual divinities, etc., which appear in the body of the paintings or on their predella-like borders, when the invasion of Belgium cut him off from his home at Brussels and all his manuscripts, etc.

Under the conditions created by the world war M. Petrucci was for nearly two years unable to resume his labours on our paintings. For a great portion of this time he was fully occupied with voluntarily undertaken hospital duties in connexion with the Belgian Red Cross—for in addition to other scientific attainments he was a fully trained medical man. He found, however, occasion even then to revisit the collection and to assist with his advice in the proposed arrangements for its eventual division between the Indian Government and the British Museum. Fortunately he had succeeded meanwhile in placing his manuscripts in safety with friends on Dutch soi1.10 At the request that I made after my return to Europe in 1916 M. Petrucci arranged to have all the extensive manuscript notes, extracts, etc., bearing on his Appendix copied at Leyden under Professor de Vissers' friendly supervision. The help of the British Foreign Office subsequently made it possible to have these voluminous copies safely transmitted to M. Petrucci at Paris by the close of the year.

It will suffice to mention here only the following : Les caractéristiques de la peinture japonaise (Revue de 1'Universit6 de Bruxelles, r907); Les documents de la Mission Chavannes (Revue de l'Université de Bruxelles, 19I o); La philosophie de la nature dans l'art d Extrême-Orient, r 9 r o ; L'art bouddhique en Extrême-Orient d'après les découvertes récentes (Gazette des Beaux-Arts, I 91 I) ; Le Kie lseu yuan houa lchouan, traduit et commenté (T dung-pao, 19I z) ; Les peintres chinois, 1913 ; La peinture chinoise au musée Cernouschi, 1914 (in collaboration with M. Chavannes) ; Les peintures bouddhiques de Touen-houang, Mission Stein (Annales du Muscle Guimet, xli : Conférences faites au Musée Guimet en 1914), 1916.

' Cf. Appendix E, I.

8 This chapter, as finally revised by M. Chavannes after M. Petrucci's death, will be found reproduced below as the second portion of Appendix E.

This essay, which appears to have been intended in the first place for separate publication but would, no doubt, have been utilized also for the corresponding chapters of M. Petrucci's Appendix, will be found printed below in Appendix E, III.

10 In explanation it may be mentioned that M. Petrucci, though brought up and educated in France, had inherited from his father the status of an Italian subject, a circumstance which during the early period of the war was of special help to him in regard to the above arrangement.

Labours of M. Petrucci.

Materials collected by M. Petrucci.