Another cup, also in Mr. Sutton’s collection, of a somewhat similar shape, _i. e._, narrow and high, has the inside almost entirely covered with these minute characters. It is well-nigh impossible to trace with the eye those near the bottom, and an estimate can thus be made of the difficulty of forming them with the brush. The decoration particularly characteristic of Kaga porcelain is the multiplication of portraits. Occasionally we find medallions of flowers set in colored borders, or fishes on the inside of both vessel and cover, and vines and flowers on the outside; but the style most intimately associated with Kaga is the marvellously minute and highly finished painting of a crowd of faces. We have seen whole tea-sets thus covered with what were said to be portraits of the poets of the Mikado’s empire, executed with the most perfect finish upon a ground of pure gold. On the inside of one shallow dish there were no fewer than sixty-five portraits, on a ground of gold, and on the outside was a landscape set in flowers. A plaque of the same ware had eighty figures, on a gold ground, surrounding a medallion with flying birds. The porcelain chosen for these curious and wonderful works is generally thick and of inferior quality, but the effect of the red and gold grounds, occasionally alternated with blue, is unquestionably rich. [Illustration: Fig. 134.--Owari Porcelain, decorated at Yeddo. (Yoshida Kiyonari Coll.)] At Owari, the favorite colors would appear to be deep-blue and white, the former being generally used as a ground, the latter for ornamentation. The seat of the manufacture is Seto, a village near Nagoya, the chief town of the province of Owari. Many of the heavy vessels now manufactured at Seto have no artistic quality to recommend them, but smaller specimens of great beauty may occasionally be met with. A small vase, for example, has the base of deep blue, the body of a paler shade, and the upper part deepening into a purplish tint. In some cases the white decoration is in relief. The porcelain and pottery reaching us from Yeddo (Fig. 134), or Tokio, is largely composed of the different provincial products. They are taken to that city to be decorated, and it is almost impossible in the great majority of cases to specify the place of manufacture.