Awata-yaki is the best known among the ceramic productions of Kioto. There is evidence to show that the art of decoration with enamels over the glaze reached Kioto from Hizen in the middle of the 17th century. Just at that time there flourished in the Western capital a potter of remarkable ability, called Nomura Seisuke. He immediately utilized the new method, and produced many beautiful examples of jewelled faience, having close, hard _pâte_, yellowish-white, or brownish-white, glaze covered with a network of fine crackle, and sparse decoration in pure full-bodied colours--red, green, gold and silver. He worked chiefly at Awata, and thus brought that factory into prominence. Nomura Seisuke, or Ninsei as he is commonly called, was one of Japan's greatest ceramists. Genuine examples of his faience have always been highly prized, and numerous imitations were subsequently produced, all stamped with the ideograph Ninsei. After Ninsei's time, the most renowned ceramists of the Awata factories were Kenzan (1688-1740); Ebisei, a contemporary of Kenzan; Dohachi (1751-1763), who subsequently moved to Kiyomizu-zaka, another part of Kioto, the faience of which constitutes the Kiyomizu-yaki mentioned above; Kinkozan (1745-1760); Hozan (1690-1721); Taizan (1760-1800); Bizan (1810-1838); and Tanzan, who was still living in 1909. It must be noted that several of these names, as Kenzan, Dohachi, Kinkozan, Hozan and Taizan, were not limited to one artist. They are family names, and though the dates we have given indicate the eras of the most noted ceramists in each family, amateurs must not draw any chronological conclusion from the mere fact that a specimen bears such and such a name. Iwakura. The origin of the Iwakura-yaki is somewhat obscure, and its history, at an early date, becomes confused with that of the Awata yaki, from which, indeed, it does not materially differ. Kiyomizu.