Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/392

 to Yokkaichi, a seaport village near Kuwana, where some potters who had formerly gained a livelihood by imitating the faiences of Seto and Awata under the patronage of the Court of Yedo, seeing themselves suddenly deprived of employment on the fall of the Tokugawa Regency in 1868, had recourse to the manufacture of Banko ware as the speediest means of finding a new market. Thenceforth this village became the principal seat of the manufacture. A not very creditable story is told of the device by which the Yokkaichi potters made themselves masters of the methods and models of Yusetsu, but at any rate they profited so well by their acquirement that there is scarcely a house at present in Tōkyō where a teapot or some other utensil of their manufacture is not in daily use. Quaint and very characteristic teapots they are, too, presenting all the peculiarities of form—and many others besides—that are to be found in Chinese boccaro, to which, moreover, the pâte bears some resemblance in its changes of colour. It would be impossible to enumerate all the varieties of Banko ware now produced—grey, chocolate, or dove-coloured grounds with delicate diapers in gold and engobe; brown or black faience with white, yellow, and pink designs incised or in relief; pottery curiously and skilfully marbled by combinations of various coloured clays, and so forth; all presenting one common feature, namely, skilful finger moulding and slight roughening of the surface as though it had received the impression of coarse linen or crape before baking. In short, the Banko-yaki of to-day bears no resemblance to the work of its nominal progenitor, Gozaemon. His chief aim was the production of solid glazes or brilliant enamels in the Chinese style,