Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/328

 Kujiri, and sought the hospitality of the Abbot of Seianji. Hearing what this man had to tell of the Karatsu productions, Kagenobu visited that place, and on his return to Mino manufactured faience after the Karatsu style. Thenceforth (about 1600) among the wares of both Mino and Owari craquelé variegated glazes are found, differing essentially from those previously produced, but, though more decorative, not superior or even equal in respect of technical qualities to the glazes of the old Seto-yaki. Kagenobu employed every means to guard the secrets of his new processes, but the experts of the neighbouring province were too clever for him. They very soon succeeded in spying out and imitating his methods (vide Shuntai-yaki). At this period the manufacture of faience was carried on at four places in Mino, namely, Kujiri, Tajimi, Kasa-wara, and Shimoishi. A small tax was levied on the industry, and fiscal records show that the total number of kilns at these four places was twenty-four.

Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the pottery of Mino appears to have undergone little if any change, but being, as has been said above, constantly confounded with the ware of Owari, nothing can be stated about it with certainty. Some doubt exists also with regard to the date of the earliest production of porcelain in Mino. One record gives the year 1804, and says that the industry was started by a dealer of Ōsaka, named Nishikawaya Mohei, who came to Tajimi carrying specimens of Hizen porcelain. It is not impossible that the first attempt to manufacture porcelain took place then, but it is tolerably sure that nothing of any excellence was produced until the potters of the neighbouring prov-