This set of bowls for religious offerings was brought back from China in 1884 by Pastor Charles Piton (1835-1905) of the Basel Mission. A missionary in Ghana (1862-1863), then in China (1864-1884), he was famous, in the context of the seminary he ran near Hong Kong, for a translation of the Bible into the Hakka language, as he believed classic Mandarin to be useless locally. On his return to Switzerland, he published prolifically on religions and the political situation in China, notably in the review entitled Messager du monde païen. D. Kunik/MEG