July, 191 2. Chinese Pottery. 45 



discovery on the Philippines. One palpable piece of evidence pointing 

 in this direction is furnished by our author in the description of a tea- 

 canister bearing the Chinese seal "Luzon make" (p. 40). The only 

 plausible explanation for this, if the report is correct, — and I see no 

 reason to take umbrage at it, — is that a jar with such a special mark 

 could but have been produced on the very soil of Luzon. 



Conspicuous among the pottery recorded in the TokikO are the 

 celadons. They are attributed to the Namban in general, to India and 

 to Luzon in particular. The black-purple clay, the green glaze, the 

 metallic sound, the designs of clouds and cranes, all pronounced char- 

 acteristics of celadons, are insisted on by our author. The search of 

 the Japanese for celadons in the Philippines is the more remarkable, as 

 they received these vessels from China and Korea and subsequently 

 manufactured them in their own country. Celadon was imitated at 

 Okawachi in the province of Hizen, though the time of its beginnings 

 seems not to be known. According to Brinkley (p. 99) the color of 

 the glaze in some of the best specimens is indescribably beautiful; 

 only a practiced eye can perceive that, in point of delicacy and lustre, 

 the advantage is with the Chinese ware. In the first part of the seven- 

 teenth century, celadon was produced at Himeji in the province of 

 Harima on the Inland Sea (Ibid., p. 372), in the eighteenth century by 

 the potter Eisen at Kyoto (p. 210), later on at Meppo (p. 378), from 1801 

 at Inugahara (p. 380), quite recently by Seifu at Kyoto (p. 417), and 

 at Otokoyama in the province of Kishiu (p. 377). 



Hideyoshi, the Taiko, a liberal patron of the ceramic industry which 

 was revived and promoted under his untiring activity, had a genuine 

 jar made for himself on Luzon, as stated by our author. This is in 

 accord with contemporaneous Jesuit relations. The Jesuit Ludwig 

 Froez (Frois) wrote in 1595: "In the Philippines jars called boioni are 

 found which are estimated low there but highly priced in Japan, for the 

 delicious beverage Cie (tea) is well preserved in them; hence what is 

 counted as two crowns by the Filipino, is much higher valued in Japan 

 and looked upon as the greatest wealth like a gem." 1 Hideyoshi 

 monopolized the trade in this pottery and is said to have confiscated 

 similar jars on their arrival from Japanese Christians who had purchased 

 them at Manila, and to have prohibited any further trade in them under 

 penalty of death. 2 But the same Hideyoshi was visited in his castle at 

 Osaka by Chinese merchants who brought him the choicest ceramic 

 productions of their country. Many a noble pair of celadon vases 



1 Quoted by O. Munsterberg, Chinesische Kunstgeschichte, Vol. II, p. 247. 



2 O. Nachod, Die Beziehungen der Niederlandischen Ostindischen Kompagnie 

 zu Japan, p. 57 (Leipzig, 1897). Compare also Cole, above, p. 10. 



