Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/164

 manufacture had been carried to a point of high excellence at Nawashiro. It has been shown that the Korean potters at Tatsumonji had commenced to produce similar ware in 1650. This is the Hibiki-de, or white craquelé faience of Satsuma. But as yet nothing is heard of decorated faience; of the Saishiki-de, or enamelled ware, and of the Nishiki-de, or brocade ware (i. e. decorated with gold as well as coloured enamels), which are practically the only varieties of Satsuma-yaki familiar to Western collectors. Strange to say, some confusion exists with regard to the origin of these beautiful products. So respectable an authority as Mr. Ninagawa Noritane, author of the "Kanko Zusetsu," refers the first use of vitrifiable enamels by the Sasshiu potters to a period no earlier than the beginning of the nineteenth century, founding his statement upon the fact that two experts of the Tatsumonji factory visited Kyōtō at the close of the eighteenth century, and there acquired the art of decorating with vitrifiable enamels. That such a visit was made is undoubtedly true. It will be referred to by-and-by. But that the first employment of vitrifiable enamels in the Satsuma fief dates from the visit, is a theory defying credence. It involves the supposition that the keramists of Satsuma, enjoying the patronage of one of the greatest nobles in Japan, and producing a ware of exceptionally fine quality, remained during more than a century and a half ignorant of processes which were practised at all the best factories in the Empire, and which had won renown for a near and rival province, Hizen. Careful enquiry proves that credulity need not be so heavily taxed. The perplexity of Mr. Ninagawa and others was caused by failing to observe that the factory where enamelled Satsuma ware was