Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/165

 event. Associated with the fine castings then made is the name of Jiyemon Yasuteru of the Nakaya family, who is commonly but erroneously supposed to have been the first in Japan to decorate bronzes with designs in high relief, taking for motives flowers, birds, figure-subjects, dragons, etc. The Taikō bestowed on him the art distinction of tenka ichi (first under the sun), exempted him from taxation and gave him the title, Dewa no Daijō. It is to the experts of this family that Japan owes the beautiful bronzes of the Tokugawa mortuary shrines in Yedo (Tōkyō) and Nikkō. Jiyemon Yasuteru's great-grandson, Jiyemon Iyetsugu, cast the bronzes for the mausoleum of Iyemitsu, the third Tokugawa Shōgun in 1651, as his father, Jiyemon Yasuiye, had cast those for the shrine of Iyeyasu, and every representative of the family down to Kameyama Yasutomo, whose son is now working in Kyōtō, was honoured with an official title, whether Dewa no Daijō or Ise no Daijō or Yamato no Daijō. Some of the choicest work of these experts is seen in reliquaries, and a better idea of their skill may be gathered from the accompanying plates than from any verbal description. Two features may be mentioned, however, since no picture can do more than suggest them; namely, the fine texture of the metal and the beautiful patina it develops in the course of years. This question of patina will be referred to in future pages.

Towards the middle of the seventeenth century another new departure was made: bronze-casters turned their attention to objects for use in private houses. Hitherto they have been seen devoting their best efforts to work of a religious character; they now began to cast alcove-ornaments, flower-vases, and