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apprenticeship in the Middle Kingdom. On his return he settled in Hizen, but it is not known exactly where. Arita, in that province, is one of the principal centres of porcelain making in Japan, and furnished during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the greater part of the vases known as “Old Japan ware,” which seems to have been made for exportation to China and Holland, and but few specimens remained in the country. Kutani ware is made in the province of Kaga, and takes its name from the village Kutani-mura, whence the clay is obtained. The manufactory was founded in the sixteenth century by Tamura Gonzayemon, who had studied porcelain making in Hizen. The older ware is decorated with deep purple, green, and yellow, but about the middle of the seventeenth century a decoration in red was introduced. The present style of ornamentation arose in this century. White porcelain was frequently sent from other parts of Japan to the potteries of Kaga to be decorated.
The manufacture of “egg-shell” porcelain, as it is termed, is stated to have been first introduced into one of the factories of Hizen about 1837. The elegant little saki cups, of pearly texture, delicately decorated in gold and colours, and occasionally enveloped in bamboo basket-work of extraordinary fineness, are produced chiefly in the province of Mino and are painted in Tokio.
It is worthy of note that in the matter of pottery and porcelain the taste of the Japanese differs widely from that of Western nations. While in their lacquer the highest finish and perfection of manufacture is desired, a rough artistic specimen of ceramic ware is far more highly valued by them than the marvels of finish so much admired in Europe. Most of the large and highly ornamented specimens are in fact made for exportation.
The following description of potters at work at the Exhibition held at Kiôto in 1873, from the ‘Japan Mail,’ may be of some interest:—“Three or four women and a couple of men were engaged in moulding, glazing, and ornamenting saucers and basins of a coarse grey earthenware. There was a single potter’s wheel, but the women were fashioning saucers without its aid, and in a way which was novel to me. Taking up a piece of clay, the workwoman flattened it with her fingers into a rude disc; then bending her left arm, which was covered with calico, till her hand rested on her shoulder, she held the flattened piece of clay in her right hand, and striking it several times against her left elbow, while at the same time giving the clay a half-turn, she quickly succeeded in making a rude vessel, half basin, half cup. I suppose that only moderately young women could thus dispense with the wheel, and only a rounded elbow would answer. One of the men brushed on the glaze, and another, armed with a hair pencil, dashed on a spray or two in a rough style. The sides of the building were open, so that every process was to be seen from the outside, and appeared to afford much interest to the native onlookers. There were a couple of small portable kilns, in which the vessels were to be seen baking.”
Pottery is known in Japan under the general term setomono or yakimono, and the crackled wares as hibi-yaki; the celadon is called seiji, and stoneware is termed ishi-yaki, a name sometimes applied also to porcelain.
