It may, therefore, be accepted as an incontestable fact, that there was an essentially Japanese style of decoration, in the sixteenth century, applied to the blue Sometsuki, the porcelain destined for the home market. This leaves the question of precedence between the vitreous and artistic porcelains of the Rose family practically unaffected. The probabilities are all against M. Jacquemart’s, or any other unqualified, theory of chronological sequence. The natural course is to proceed from copying to originality. Japan had acquired the ceramic art from China. Was it not likely to occupy its attention first with copying the simpler styles of its experienced neighbor, while feeling after an equally simple originality, such as the Italians copied in their turn? From the first it may have had foreign taste to contend with, although very little is said of a Portuguese trade in porcelain. Then came religious troubles to delay the development of a national art, and, before they were over, the dynastic war in China, causing a suspension of production in that country, offered an inducement to supply a new market, and thus again delayed the national development. One historical fact remains to be added: In the “_Ambassades Mémorables_,” published at Amsterdam in 1680, we find allusion made to porcelain sent from the Dutch trading-post at Deshima, which did not sell well, _because it had not flowers enough upon it_. This clearly cannot refer to the “artistic” porcelain of Jacquemart, with its rich borders and crowded flowers. The only inference from all that can be said and legitimately assumed is, that the Hizen porcelain of the beginning of the seventeenth century is that which most nearly resembles the Chinese. To that period, therefore, may chiefly be assigned those rich pieces of Japanese Rose which have been confounded with the Chinese. When, afterward, the native taste for simplicity was striving to reassert itself, it was again obstructed by the demands of Dutch trade, and the requirements of such connoisseurs as Wagenaar, who objected to a paucity of flowers. It follows that many specimens of the vitreous class must have been subsequent to the artistic. From the beginning of the history of Japanese porcelain external influences were at war with native taste, and, in determining the sequence of styles, the only data open to consultation are the events ostensibly giving rise to them--the demand creating the supply--and the probable condition of the skill required to meet that demand. The porcelain long called “Indian” belongs to the same period of Japanese art, and was taken home in ship-loads by the Dutch monopolists of the seventeenth century. The foreigners, not content with compelling, by the influence of trade, a bending of Japanese styles to their taste, supplied special designs. These were reproduced by the Japanese artists with the most exact and faithful precision.