Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/340

 there as early as the ninth century, but it was probably unglazed pottery, without any claim to public favour. That the resources of the place were meagre has been inferred from the fact that Shinkuro and Hachizo, during the early years of their residence at Takatori, used imported materials only. But it seems to have been a part of the Taikō's order to his generals that not workmen alone but also matter to work with should be brought from Korea. Chikuzen certainly did not want for fine clays, as was proved by the pieces subsequently manufactured there. The first productions of Shinkuro and Hachizo at Takatori were in the pure Korean style, the shapes and ornamentation being archaic in character, the pâte coarse, the glaze thin and diaphanous. Shinkuro did not long remain a captive. He died almost immediately after the lord of the province, Kuroda Nagamasa The latter's son, Tadayuki, showed himself a liberal patron of art. It happened at this time that the celebrated dilettante Kobori Masakazu, feudal chief of Enshiu, interested himself in the work of the Korean captives, and to him, at Fushimi, near Kyōtō, Tada-yuki sent Hachizo and the latter's son, Hachiroemon, for instruction. Even this temporary association with the great amateur would probably have been sufficient to establish the prestige of the Takatori ware. But, in addition, Hachizo and his son were shortly afterwards assisted by a workman of greater skill and finer artistic instincts than themselves. This was Igarashi Jizaemon, a native of Hizen, who had devoted several years to acquiring and practising the processes of the Seto potters of Owari. He appears to have been a man of independent means, wandering from place to place in his capacity of amateur artist. Happening