Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/111

 are often found, especially in plates and censers. Work of this sort is seldom very delicate in polychrome Imari-yaki. It must rather be regarded as a specialty of the Mikawachi, or Hirado, potters. Nevertheless, medallions filled with reticulated diapers were often employed, with excellent effect, to give lightness and variety to a profusely decorated surface. Another device was to model portions of the design in relief. This method was employed most frequently in the case of scrolls or bunches of chrysanthemums, the raised petals of the flowers producing a highly artistic effect. Much less common, but even more pleasing in its results, was a method of deeply pitting parts of the surface, especially the shoulders of a vase or bottle. The play of light and shade upon the rounded edges of the pits combined with the brilliant colours of the enamels to produce a softness and richness which must be seen to be appreciated. In connection with this part of the subject, it may be well to caution the amateur against Jacquemart's phantasies with regard to Japanese porcelain. His "Porcelaine à Mandarins" and "Porcelaine des Indes à Fleur" are examples of the remarkable misapprehensions into which the most conscientious and painstaking connoisseur may be betrayed by building broad theories upon slender hypotheses suggested by his own imagination. These wares never came out of Japanese factories. In short, of Jacquemart's four representative examples of Japanese porcelain, depicted with great care in his plates, two only, the first and the last, are what they profess to be: the others are Chinese.

It has been shown that the use of lacquer for decorating faience dates from the latter part of the