In fact, the early enamelled wares of Imari are recognised by the Japanese as the _fons et origo_ of most of the decorated porcelain, to say nothing of the later pottery, of their country. We have seen how our ‘old Japan’ group started from a slight modification of the blue and white, but we must find place also for an early ware decorated in five colours, somewhat in the Wan-li style. Of this ware but few pieces survive. The tradition, however, was carried on at Kutani and at many of the Kioto kilns in the eighteenth century. Late in the seventeenth century the Kizayemon family obtained the privilege of supplying the porcelain, decorated with cranes and chrysanthemums, for the personal use of the Mikado, and at the present day a member of this family is said to still claim the right of purveying to the imperial court. It is to one of these Kizayemons, but not until the year 1770, that the merit of the invention of seggars for holding the porcelain in the kiln is given by the Japanese. It would seem that before that date no such protection was given. That such a claim should be made shows how completely Japan at this time was shut out from the rest of the world. And here we may point out how self-contained was the development of Japanese porcelain during the palmy days of the Tokugawa _régime_ (say from 1650 to 1850). As in the case of the kindred arts of metalware and lacquer, any European influence was quite of a casual and what we may call fanciful nature; while the new methods of decoration that came into use in [Illustration: Plate XXV. _Japanese. Imari ware._] China in the eighteenth century were never recognised or copied, even if they were known. What imitation there was of China was confined to the copying of Ming types; the Manchus, in fact, were never acknowledged by the Japanese, and their arts were under a taboo almost as strict as that applied to the civilisation of the West. No better instance of this conservatism could be given than the fact that the use of gold as a source of a red pigment, the basis of the _famille rose_ in China, appears to have been unknown until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and even then the _rouge-d’or_ was but sparingly applied. On the other hand, the Chinese were always eager, in the interest of trade, to copy the wares exported from Nagasaki, and we shall see later on what an influence the various products of the Hizen kilns had upon the porcelain of Europe. These, then, were practically the only kinds of Japanese ceramic ware known in Europe until the opening of the country in our days--the blue and white or _sometsuke_, the ‘old Japan’ or _nishiki-de_, and the peculiar type which we have classed as Kakiyemon. To this list we should perhaps add the plain white ware, much of which was subsequently decorated in Europe.