stood in the market at that time, failed to distinguish the fine and costly bronzes of Joun, Shokaku and their colleagues from cheap imitations which soon began to compete with them, so that ultimately the Sanseisha had to be closed. This page in the modern history of Japan's bronzes needs little alteration to be true of her applied art in general. Foreign demand has shown so little discrimination that experts, finding it impossible to obtain adequate remuneration for first-class work, have been obliged to abandon the field altogether, or to lower their standard to the level of general appreciation, or by forgery to cater for the perverted taste which attaches unreasoning value to age. Joun has produced, and is thoroughly capable of producing, bronzes at least equal to the best of Seimin's masterpieces, yet he has often been induced to put Seimin's name on objects for the sake of attracting buyers who attach more value to cachet than to quality. If to the names of Joun and his brilliant pupil Ryuki we add those of Suzuki Chokichi, Okazaki Sessei, Hasegawa Kumazo, Kanaya Gorosaburo and Jomi Eisuke, we have a group of modern bronze-casters who unquestionably surpass the ten experts beginning with Seimin and ending with Somin. Okazaki Sessei has successfully achieved the casting of huge panels carrying designs in high relief; and whether there is question of patina or of workmanship, Jomi Eisuke has never been surpassed. Occidental influence has been felt, of course, in the field of modern bronze-casting. At a school of art officially established in Tokyo in 1873 under the direction of Italian teachers--a school which owed its signal failure partly to the incompetence and intemperate behaviour of some of its foreign professors, and partly to a strong renaissance of pure Japanese classicism--one of the few accomplishments successfully taught was that of modelling in plaster and chiselling in marble after Occidental methods. Marble statues are out of place in the wooden buildings as well as in the parks of Japan, and even plaster busts or groups, though less incongruous perhaps, have not yet found favour. Hence the skill undoubtedly possessed by several graduates of the defunct art school has to be devoted chiefly to a subordinate purpose, namely, the fashioning of models for metal-casters. To this combination of modellers in European style and metal-workers of such force as Suzuki and Okazaki, Japan owes various memorial bronzes and effigies which are gradually finding a place in her parks, her museums, her shrines or her private houses. There is here little departure from the well-trodden paths of Europe. Studies in drapery, prancing steeds, ideal poses, heads with fragments of torsos attached (in extreme violation of true art), crouching beasts of prey--all the stereotyped styles are reproduced. The imitation is excellent. Carving in Wood and Ivory.