Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/322

 enamels were less brilliant, and, the glaze lacking solidity and purity, the general effect was rather confused than brilliant. A much better conception of the same potter was to add floral designs in green, blue, yellow, and light red (or pinkish) enamels to the dead-leaf glaze of the old Seto masters. Another variety, the manufacture of which dates from 1840, and it is said to have been conceived by the Prince of Owari himself, had cherry-flower and maple-leaf enamelled decoration on slate-coloured, or grey, ground. At that time the best porcelain decorators were assembled at the Sankō temple, and had their kilns within its enclosure. Among them an artist of special note was Kanematsu Shōsuke. Their pieces enjoyed considerable popularity. So rare, however, are authenticated specimens of enamelled Owari porcelain dating farther back than the abolition of feudalism (1868), that this branch of the Seto manufacture may be called a practically recent departure. Even now the work of decoration over the glaze cannot be said to be carried on in Owari itself, the fact being that Owari porcelain is brought to Tōkyō and Yokohama and painted there. Advisedly the term "painted" is here used because in the atelier of the Tōkyō e-tsuke-shi (decorator) vitrifiable enamels are almost unknown; he prefers pigments,—dark brown, black, red, gold, green, pink, and yellow. Sometimes the designs are traced on white ground; sometimes the ground itself is tinted. The pictures are often of high merit,—beautifully executed, cleverly distributed, and full of artistic instinct. Outside Japan such work could only be executed at almost prohibitive expense; in Tōkyō it is done by artists who are happy if they earn half a dollar daily. Pages would be needed to