Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/415

 potter's art as a means of gaining a livelihood. If this be true, the factory must take precedence of all others, so far as Yedo is concerned, but it is here placed second, because its productions failed to attract any attention for nearly a century after the reported date of their first appearance. The furnace was then (1680) in the hands of one Shirai Hanshichi, and its outcome was confined to tea-ware and fire-holders of unglazed pottery. But in the next generation (1720) faience after the fashion of the Raku-yaki gained for the factory considerable local popularity. Small figures, especially of women, and the larger class of utensils used by the tea-clubs, were the staple articles of manufacture. A business of some importance was also done in fire-boxes of coloured clays, after the style carried to such perfection by Zengoro Hozen of Kyōtō. Green, black, red, and white clays were employed; sometimes mixed so as to produce a marbled effect; sometimes used separately. The glaze was very thin and glossy and the pâte carefully manipulated. This manufacture is now carried on with great success. The fire-boxes are deservedly very popular in Tōkyō, being not only finely finished but also remarkably cheap. They resemble highly polished marble.

The reader will probably have observed that amateur Japanese keramists generally chose Raku-yaki for their first essays. This is of course due in great part to the fact that the Korean master's faience, owing to the peculiarly simple methods of its manufacture, is well adapted to domestic manufacture. Another reason is to be found in the low temperature at which