KUTANI WARE.--There only remains one important centre of porcelain manufacture for us to describe. This lies far away among the mountains that skirt the western coast of Japan. The feudal lords of that country, however, the princes of Kaga, were reputed to be the most wealthy of all the daimios of Japan. A junior branch of this family, the lords of Daichoji, as early as the first half of the seventeenth century established a kiln at the mountain village of Kutani. In the year 1660 an emissary was despatched to Hizen to spy out the land and learn what he could of the new processes lately introduced there. The story of his difficulties is only another version of that told of Tamakichi, the Seto potter. After many adventures, abandoning the wife that he had been forced to marry at Arita and the child he had had by her, he returned to Kaga, equipped with the desired information and experience. He succeeded in making a true porcelain with a white ground, decorated in a style founded, it is said, both on the contemporary Hizen ware and on the enamelled stoneware of Kochi. Morikaga, a famous artist of Kioto, was retained to furnish designs for the decoration. We have in the British Museum a spherical vase, painted in the five colours with a series of spirited figures, which may well date from that time (PL. XXVI.). Examples of this period are rare, but some of the old drug-pots, jealously guarded by their owners, that were still, a few years ago, to be seen in the druggists’ and herbalists’ shops of Osaka and Sakai, may perhaps be traced back to the potters of the seventeenth century, either those of Kaga or those of Hizen. At this time, in fact, the Kaga ware had hardly differentiated itself from that of the parent province. It was not till the beginning of the eighteenth century that the typical Kutani ware, one of the most original and decorative ever turned out from Japanese kilns, was produced. On a greyish paste, hardly to be reckoned as porcelain, the lustrous, full-bodied enamels, almost unctuous in quality, are laid with a full brush. The whole surface is generally covered, and a dark, juicy green is the prevailing colour, over which a design of black lines is drawn. Next in importance among the enamels there comes first purple, then a heavy blue enamel which somewhat clashes with the other colours, and finally a full-toned yellow. It would seem from Japanese accounts that this kind of ware was not made after 1730, when there ensued a period of decay, but it is difficult to believe the statement that the manufacture was not revived till 1810. The picturesquely decorated bowls [Illustration: _PLATE XXVI._ JAPANESE, KAGA WARE]