434 ART INDUSTRY AND RELATED OCCUPATIONS. 



among all the iron house utensils which is often artistically orna- 

 mented. The cover is usually made of bronze, rich in copper, and 

 sometimes the handle also. Most of the Tetsu-bin are cast in the 

 three capitals, and are sometimes ornamented with inlaid work or 

 with enamel. Among the older, richly decorated kettles, those of 

 Kin-ju-do in Kioto and of Riobundo in Osaka are most generally 

 found in collections. 



Fig. 15, p. 433, represents such an iron kettle. It shows above the 

 out-jutting rim for holding it on the tripod, a rough surface, which 

 looks as if hewn out of a rock. Tablets of copper plate sur- 

 rounded by thick silver wire are inlaid in this surface. These 

 copper tablets were previously inlaid with gold and silver. The 

 forged iron handle is decorated also with inlaid work, likewise the 

 dark copper cover. On the copper plate in front, resembling an 

 out-spread fan, is the blooming Sakura with the Uguisu, i.e. the 

 Japanese wild cherry-tree with the Japanese nightingale, in silver 

 and gold. A narrow gold plate encircles the spout in the form of 

 a ring. 



Z6gan, or Inlaid Work on Iron. 



Although inlaying in iron was known even at the time of the 

 Kuwammu Tenno (782 to 807 A.D.), still it was not generally 

 employed till the i6th century, when, under Ota Nobunaga (1542 

 to 1582), the iron breast armour, Jap. Oke-gawa (literally, tub- 

 bark), the armour shirt or Kusari-katabira, of woven wire, had 

 become a part of the warrior's armour. It then grew to be more 

 and more the custom to decorate these pieces of breast armour and 

 the helmet also with silver and gold inlay ; just as in Europe 

 and especially in Spain, during the Middle Ages, armour and 

 weapons were often made very costly by this inlaid work. 

 The finest Japanese armour was made in the time of Taiko-sama, 

 that is, during the second half of the i6th century. 



More surprising than the inlaid work on the forged iron armour 

 and weapons, is its direct employment on cast iron Tetsu-bin, 

 vases and other articles. As is well known, the cast iron cannot, 

 on account of its hardness and brittleness, be worked with the 

 hammer, chisel and burin. The way in which these properties are 

 lessened by the reduction of the carboniferous contents has been 



an examination of the origin and age of the Japanese metal articles. The 

 glass case which covered this masterpiece, the eagle, was opened, the bird taken 

 down from its pedestal, a rock of strong sheet iron, and thoroughly examined 

 in all its parts ; but we found no inscription, name, or sign, which would in- 

 dicate its origin. We have also not been able to trace the history of this 

 remarkable piece of art-industry, which Mitford, the former English Secretary of 

 Legation in Japan, had brought with him. We then turned to the bronzes. 

 Scarcely the third part of these bore name and date. But from them it was 

 apparent that almost all these vases and other articles designated as "old 

 Japanese bronze" were made in this century. 



