Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/42

 processes are said to have been kept as strictly secret in China as they were subsequently at Arita in Japan. So rare were the specimens which Japanese collectors obtained of enamelled porcelain manufactured prior to the Wan-li (1573–1620), a period exceptionally prolific of ware thus decorated, that the use of vitrifiable enamels was not supposed by them to have been largely and successfully practised in the Middle Kingdom until the second half of the sixteenth century. Shonzui, then, learned nothing of this branch of his art. On his return to Japan, he made no attempt to manufacture anything but porcelain decorated with blue under the glaze. Neither was this, strictly speaking, a Japanese ware. Shonzui had brought clay, glaze, and colouring material from China. None of these were then known to exist in Japan, nor were they discovered for a considerable period afterwards. When, therefore, the imported supply failed, the manufacture naturally came to an end. Shonzui is supposed to have settled at Arita, in Hizen. Why he selected that place there is nothing to show. The factories there were in a most undeveloped condition, nor did people yet entertain the remotest conception that Hizen was destined to become the centre of Japan's porcelain industry. The most reasonable explanation is that he desired to remain at some point as near as possible to China, whence he probably purposed to procure a new supply of porcelain materials, and whither he may have intended to proceed again. But, if he entertained either of these designs, they were never realised. He died at Arita, and although the clay he had brought from China cannot have lasted many years, he does not appear to have had any opportunity of replenish-