JAPANESE ART INDUSTRY IN GENERAL. 2>7>'h 



If one wished to know the influence of Japan upon English art 

 industry, he had only to look at the most brilliant part in the 

 British section of the Exhibition, the productions of the five fol- 

 lowing great houses, viz., Elkington, Minton, the Royal Porcelain 

 Manufactory of Worcester, H. Doulton and Thos. Webb & Sons. 

 The exhibition of Elkington, the most celebrated English silver- 

 smith, included chiefly useful articles of gold and silver and electro- 

 plated nickel wares. Japanese models played a large part in the 

 varied ornamentation, and generally were employed with great 

 taste. 



In Minton's porcelain manufactory at Stoke-upon-Trent, which 

 imitates the varied Faience of earlier times, and had an extraor- 

 dinarily rich collection in Paris, there is scarcely one Japanese 

 theme that has not been used. Especially noticeable were the 

 cups in the colouring of the Awata-yaki, each with its mume 

 plum and flying nightingale (Uguisu) charmingly painted on a 

 shield of violet ground. But who will pay 105 francs for such a 

 work when he can get the same cup from Japan for a few dollars ? 

 The Royal Porcelain Works of Worcester, the second great manu- 

 factory of English china, in its efforts to imitate Satsuma Faience, 

 discovered " ivory porcelain," with a colour between that of Satsuma 

 and Awata-yaki, resembling ivory more than either however, and 

 well-suited to its name. It is a notable specialty of this factory, 

 and not only the decorations but in part the Japanese forms also 

 are imitated very successfully in its prismatic and bamboo-cane 

 vases, basins, etc. 



There are many Japanese copies also in the work of the great 

 London Faience factory of H. Doulton at Lambeth, and in many 

 other of the English exhibits of fire-clay wares. The factory which 

 shows the least Japanese influence among the five mentioned 

 above is the glass works of Thomas Webb & Sons. 



The United States of America appeared also in the Champs de 

 Mars. Among their exhibits, I note that of the firm of Tiffany 

 & Co., New York, which received one of the three great prize- 

 medals in the department of Orfevrerie. A large part of its heavy 

 silver ware was decorated in Japanese designs with fishes, butter- 

 flies, crabs, herons, iris, garlands, etc., partly engraved and partly 

 in relief. The ceramic industry of America was but slightly 

 represented ; but nevertheless the Japanese section of the " Cen- 

 tennial Exposition" in Philadelphia, 1876, has had a surprising 

 influence upon it. Where formerly it was the custom, even in the 

 households of the rich, to use plain white plates and cups, from this 

 time, wherever possible, everybody would have them decorated in 

 Japanese style. 



Most of the other countries which were represented at the Paris 

 Exhibition made but little display in this direction. Russian art 

 industry for instance, has held itself entirely independent of Japa- 

 nese influence, and preserves more than all others its own national 



