WARES OF SATSUMA
A memorandum drawn up by an official of the Kagoshima prefecture, for presentation to the Commission which presided over the Industrial Exhibition held last autumn in Yedo, gives the composition of the pigments used for producing the various colours of the fine Satsuma wares. Dr. Edward Divers, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry at the Imperial College of Engineering, has kindly examined specimens of these materials in Yedo, and has furnished me with their English names. The mixtures for the various colours are as follows:—
Red—Ground white glass, soft or lead variety (shiratama no ko); white lead (tō no tsuchi); colcothar or red oxide of iron (beni-gara)[1] and a silicious earth called hinōka tsuchi.
Green—Ground white glass; white lead; copper oxychloride (roku-shyō) and silicious earth.
Yellow—Ground white glass; red lead (kōmeitan); silicious earth and metallic antimony (tōshirome).
White—Ground white glass, silicious earth, and white lead.
Blue—Ground glass and smalt (a ground blue glass, the colour of which is due to a cobalt compound; the Japanese name is hana konjyō).
Purple—Ground white glass, white lead, and manganese.
Black—Ground white glass, white lead, an earthy manganese ore containing a little cobalt (wensei) and a very silicious carbonate of copper, apparently ground and elutriated malachite (shionuki-roku shyō).
At the pottery belonging to Chin Jūkan I saw a group being modelled in the white clay, which after baking and glazing assumes a light cream colour and becomes what is known as Satsuma crackle. These articles were intended to be decorated later on with gilding and colours. The potters here possessed only two old pieces of plain ware, a chōji-buro and a figure of a child playing with a diminutive puppy. The chōji-buro is a utensil formerly of two pieces, namely, a brazier and a boiler on the top of it, and is intended for distilling oil of cloves, though in practice it- ↑ Dr. Divers informs me that benigara is a corruption of Bengal, whence this substance was formerly obtained.
163
