Latest of all to acknowledge the impulse of the new departure have been the potters of Kaga. For many years their ware enjoyed the credit, or discredit, of being the most lavishly decorated porcelain in Japan. It is known to Western collectors as a product blazing with red and gold, a very degenerate offspring of the Chinese Ming type, which Hozen of Kioto reproduced so beautifully at the beginning of the 19th century under the name of _eiraku-yaki_. Undoubtedly the best specimens of this _kinran-de_ (brocade) porcelain of Kaga merit praise and admiration; but, on the whole, ware so gaudy could not long hold a high place in public esteem. The Kaga potters ultimately appreciated that defect. They still manufacture quantities of tea and coffee sets, and dinner or dessert services of red-and-gold porcelain for foreign markets; but about 1885 some of them made zealous and patient efforts to revert to the processes that won so much fame for the old Kutani-yaki, with its grand combinations of rich, lustrous, soft-toned glazes. The attempt was never entirely successful, but its results restored something of the Kaga kilns' reputation. Since 1895, again, a totally new departure has been made by Morishita Hachizaemon, a ceramic expert, in conjunction with Shida Yasukyo, president of the Kaga products joint stock company (_Kaga bussan kabushiki kaisha_) and teacher in the Kaga industrial school. The line chosen by these ceramists is purely Chinese. Their great aim seems to be the production of the exquisite Chinese monochromes known as _u-kwo-tien-tsing_ (blue of the sky after rain) and _yueh-peh_ (_clair-de-lune_). But they also devote much attention to porcelains decorated with blue or red _sous couverte_. Their work shows much promise, but like all fine specimens of the Sino-Japanese school, the prices are too high to attract wide custom. Summary. The sum of the matter is that the modern Japanese ceramist, after many efforts to cater for the taste of the Occident, evidently concludes that his best hope consists in devoting all his technical and artistic resources to reproducing the celebrated wares of China. In explanation of the fact that he did not essay this route in former times, it may be noted, first, that he had only a limited acquaintance with the wares in question; secondly, that Japanese connoisseurs never attached any value to their countrymen's imitation of Chinese porcelains so long as the originals were obtainable; thirdly, that the ceramic art of China not having fallen into its present state of decadence, the idea of competing with it did not occur to outsiders; and fourthly, that Europe and America had not developed their present keen appreciation of Chinese masterpieces. Yet it is remarkable that China, at the close of the 19th century, should have again furnished models to Japanese eclecticism.