EARLY WARES
easily be recognised by their peculiarly opaque, waxy appearance.
There is some uncertainty with regard to the date of Chōjiro's death, but the best authorities place it about the year 1610. The sale of his pieces was not permitted without special sanction, everything that he made being reserved for use in the Court, or by a few of the Court nobles, his patrons. In the time of his son, Tōkei, this prohibition was removed. The family had hitherto lived in the immediate vicinity of the Juraku Palace—or of the grounds in which it stood—but Tōkei moved into the city (Kyōtō) and supported himself entirely by the sale of his pottery. Contemporary with Tōkei was an expert in swords, by name Honami Kōetsu, who learned the Raku process, and manufactured pieces scarcely to be distinguished from those of Tōkei. The latter used as a mark the single ideograph Raku, whereas the former employed five ideographs, hyo-dan-sen raku-yaki. But this distinction does not always exist. Kōetsu had a son, Kūchū, who was equally skilled as a potter. Their wares are called Kōetsu Raku-yaki, and Kūchū Raku-yaki, the pottery of Chōjiro and his descendants being designated simply Raku-yaki. The gold seal presented by Hideyoshi to Chōjiro does not appear to have been used after the destruction of the Juraku Palace. It was replaced by a wooden seal for purposes of manufacture. Each representative of the family had a wooden seal of his own, and this, at his death, was broken into two pieces and buried with him. All the seals were stamped with the same ideograph—raku—but all presented some recognisable difference of calligraphy. The names of the successive potters of family are as follows:—
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