Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/397

 there was coarse and very hard, with a considerable admixture of sand: it belongs to the category of stone-ware rather than of pottery. In the early days of the factory's existence its outcome consisted entirely of rude household utensils. But about the year 1520 it attracted the attention of Shōō, a well-known chajin. At his instigation the potters set themselves to court the patronage of the tea-clubs by imitating the Seto methods. Their most characteristic manufacture was hard, close faience, having a body glaze of amber red, over which was run semi-diaphanous green or brown glaze. They produced also thin brown glazes, plain, streaked with black or spotted with white; and occasionally they resorted to the curious device of imbedding little fragments of quartz in the glaze; a fashion said to have been suggested by the Chinese habit of jewelling choice bronzes. Shigaraki ware of this period received the name of Shōō-Shigaraki, in reference to its patron, Shōō. Towards the close of the same century—sixteenth—the factory attracted the special attention of the great chajin Sen no Rikiu, and its productions of that era were distinguished as Rikiu-Shigaraki. They resemble the greyish craquelé faience of Korea. A little later (about 1630) appeared the Sotōn-shigaraki, a faience having white pâte and craquelé buff glaze, which derived its name from the chajin Sōtan. The Enshiu-shigaraki, called after Kobori Masakazu, lord of Enshiu (1650) is another variety, offering no distinctive features, but valued by the tea-clubs for the sake of its orthodox shapes and sober glazes. Many specimens of old Shigaraki ware show the mark known as geta-okoshi, produced by two wooden supports resembling those of a clog (geta), on which the piece was placed before firing. Tea-jars