Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/270

 showing accidental crackle, is sometimes greyish white, and sometimes comparable to refined wax. The third is porcelain of dull timbre but fine texture, covered with milk-white, opaque glaze of remarkable purity, without crackle. Finally, there is egg-shell porcelain, softer than that of Hizen or Owari, and further distinguished by the lustreless aspect of its glaze. It would be misleading to lay down any hard and fast rule associating special fashions of decoration with these different varieties of biscuit and glaze. The connoisseur will generally find, however, that the pâte of the Ao-Kutani is stone-ware or semi-porcelain.

A theory credited by some amateurs is that Gorodayu Shonzui, after his return from China (1515), settled at Kutani, and there manufactured enamelled porcelain. There is no foundation for this idea except the recent discovery of a plate of old Kutani ware bearing Shonzui's mark. Very ample credulity is needed to draw from evidence so slender and deceptive a conclusion entirely at variance with fairly well authenticated annals. It ought to be mentioned that the Kutani experts of early days are credited with a monopoly of skill in preparing and applying a dead-leaf or chocolate-brown glaze of much depth and softness. It was copied from Chinese pieces, but the merit of reproducing it in Japan belongs to the Kutani factory.

The popularity enjoyed by the early Kaga ware was deservedly great, but owing to some unrecorded cause the manufacture did not long continue. It must be confessed, indeed, that very little is known about the story of the potteries until comparatively recent times. No names of experts have been handed down by tradition, nor do the marks upon specimens offer information of this character. That ware of such technical excellence and artistic beauty should have failed to find a market is scarcely credible. The probable explanation of the early factory's short life, the explanation given by Japanese experts, is that the productions