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sacred images, and Chinese reactions to these images, both emotional and intellectual . This is a strong essay and is a fine piece of cross-cultural erudition. Liam Brockey’s chapter dealing with the visitator André Palmeiro is, as he himself states, an abstract of his recent book (p. 103).1 Thus, this chapter, clearly organized and written, can serve as a brief introduction to this interesting historical character. Manjusha Kuruppath’s contribution explores competing depictions in the Dutch press of Johann Adam Schall von Bell’s role in the 1655 Dutch East India Company’s embassy to the Manchu court in search of trade agreements. The embassy failed, and one Dutch author blamed this on Jesuit sabotage (mostly by means of Schall’s improper use of his influence in the Qing court), while Dutch Jesuit authors blamed the Company for expecting the Jesuits to divert from their own mission for the sake of Dutch commerce. Well-written and well-researched, this essay provides a detailed narrative of the Dutch mission and a glimpse into China’s role in intra-European rivalries. Schall also figures prominently in the next chapter by Shu-Jyuan Deiwiks, who utilizes original secret Manchu court files discovered in 1983 to examine the old Jesuit’s trial and its aftermath. These documents shed light on Schall’s accusers, his allies, the precise charges brought against him, and the proceedings. Those interested in this episode of the China Jesuits’ history will find this a useful resource. The last chapter, by the veteran scholar of Jesuit missions, Claudia von Collani, takes up the Kangxi emperor’s response to assertions of papal authority in his realm as presented by the notorious Tournon and Maigrot legations. This is a very erudite piece of work, drawing on a wealth of sources, introducing a great deal of original material in translation, and laying out the history of these legations in a clear and organized manner. Taken as a whole, this volume lacks a coherent theme since the conference’s originally-projected use of “cultural psychology” as a new theoretical framework turned out to be a fruitless approach, and none of the essays really deals with scientific exchange. The individual essays are of uneven quality, though most of them make at least some small contribution to their subject or can serve as introductory readings for graduate students. I would recommend this book for scholars professionally interested in the Jesuit China missions during the first half of the 17th century and those who work with the history of European-Asian contacts. CHARLES B. JONES The Catholic University of America PATRICE FAVA, Aux portes du ciel. La statuaire taoïste du Hunan. Paris: Les Belles Lettres and École Française d’Extrême-Orient, 2014. 656 pp. €55 (pb). ISBN 978-2-251-44451-2 The book Aux portes du Ciel. La statuaire taoïste du Hunan (At the Doors of Heaven: The Daoist Statuary of Hunan), by Patrice Fava, has been published by 1 Liam Matthew Brockey, The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014). 74 BOOK REVIEWS Les Belles Lettres in collaboration with the EFEO as part of the series Art et Anthropologie de la Chine (Art and Anthropology of China), directed by Anne Cheng and Marc Kalinowski. It contains 654 pages and includes three indexes for names, place names, and subjects; a foreword by Kristofer Schipper (to whom the volume is dedicated jointly with André Breton); a bibliography of quoted works in European, Chinese, and Japanese languages; a list of the Daozang texts mentioned; and a list of the Daoist manuscripts presented. The photos show objects belonging either to Patrice Fava’s personal collection, or to “private collections,” without further information for the most part.2 The book is organized into three parts of different lengths. The first, longest part: “L’histoire d’une découverte” (“The History of a Discovery,” pp. 19-428) is the body of the book, strictly speaking. Patrice Fava uses the personal narrative form to describe his discovery of the field in Hunan, his meeting with Daoist masters initiated in the rituals of “Orthodox Oneness” (Zhengyi 正一) and of the “Pure and Simple...