S2 
House & Garden 
EASE 
You will find in the Wills Sainte Claire an Ease 
never experienced before in all your motoring 
— an amazing Ease in attaining and maintain¬ 
ing speed, in floating over the roughest roads, 
in taking the sharpest turns. 
An amazing Ease in driving on the long day’s 
run of the tour or in the heavy traffic, Ease in 
parking and turning—an Ease incomparable 
that marks the fullest measure of motoring 
comfort and the fullest achievement of motor 
car design. 
This should interest you. Hundreds of men 
and women who had ceased to drive their 
own motor cars are now driving the Wills 
Sainte Claire, because this incomparable Ease 
has given them a new thrill and a new sense 
of luxurious motoring. 
C. H. Wills &. Company, Marysville, Michigan 
WILLS SAINTE CLAIRE 
The Imari Ware of Japan 
(Continued from page 39) 
Soft blue tones are found, in these pieces of Imari—the flower 
boat, bowl and covered sweetmeat box with the outspread wings 
of birds forming the four legs 
Japan. This was in 
1542. They .were 
hospitably received, 
and thus began 
European inter¬ 
course. Up to 1593 
the Portuguese pos- 
B utter fly mark sessed a monopoly 
found on com- in the oversea com- 
mon Imari merce with Japan. 
Thence onward it 
diminished until the 
Imperial Edict of 1639 practically termi¬ 
nated the Portuguese trade with Japan. 
During this period, or from 1550 to 
1639, the Portuguese carried many pieces 
of Japanese porcelain into Europe, and, 
of course, some of these very early 
pieces may be among those in European 
collections, although it is practically im¬ 
possible to identify any such since the 
Japanese porcelains of this period, and 
even of following centuries, lacked reign 
date marks, rarely show Province desig¬ 
nation marks, and are difficult to distin¬ 
guish, if indeed the earliest pieces can be, 
from contemporary Chinese pieces. 
While we are quite in the dark con¬ 
cerning the porcelains exported during 
the period of the Japanese commercial 
relations with Portugal, when we reach 
the period of Dutch influence we begin 
to have some record of the manufacture 
of porcelain in Japan. In 1611 the 
Emperor had issued letters patent to 
Dutch traders. Some forty years later 
the privileges of the Dutch were cur¬ 
tailed, yet amid conditions at once hu¬ 
miliating and distressing they continued 
a trade with Japan which still proved 
lucrative. By 1842 still greater indigni¬ 
ties were inflicted on the Dutch trading 
masters, yet the exports of that year 
at their hands amounted to a sum ex¬ 
ceeding $3,500,000, their imports total¬ 
ing as much. From this year porcelain 
became one of the standard articles car¬ 
ried by the Dutch out of Japan, at least 
100 bales being shipped annually, ex¬ 
clusive of private consignments. We are 
told that 44,943 pieces of porcelain ar¬ 
rived in Holland in 1664, while 16,580 
pieces of the same ware left the Dutch 
settlement of Batavia for Europe. 
Nearly all these pieces, if not all of 
them, were from the kilns in the Prov¬ 
ince of Hizen. 
The early Japanese manufacturers 
who exported porcelain lent willing ear 
to the suggestions of the Dutch traders. 
The Dutch taste was by no means in ac¬ 
cord with the Japanese, and Holland 
would have paid little attention to the 
simple, restrained form of Japanese dec¬ 
oration. Instead, the Dutch demanded 
heavily patterned surfaces, panels with 
a great deal of ornament, floral decora¬ 
tion in plenty. The Land of Tulips had 
no notion of letting the Land of Cherry- 
Blossoms dole forth any meagre flor¬ 
escence. To make certain that there 
should be no mistake about it, one of 
the Dutch managers, Wagenaar, him¬ 
self a connoisseur and artist, designed a 
pattern of a white flower on a blue 
ground, (possibly the very thing we call 
the Hawthorn Pattern), and the first 
two hundred pieces of it which reached 
Europe were immediately bought up by 
admiring collectors. The Japanese, with 
an eye to the advantages of such sales, 
were not finicky in meeting the Dutch 
taste and henceforth Dutch influence 
was strongly exhibited in Japanese 
porcelains manufactured for export! 
August II, King of Poland and Elec¬ 
tor of Saxony, had built for his amuse¬ 
ment what was called the Japanese 
Palace. Between 1698 and 1724 “Old 
Japan” porcelain pieces were acquired 
for decorating its various halls. There 
were covered vases, beakers, gourd¬ 
shaped bottles, jars, plates and the like, 
in red, blue and gold decoration, occa¬ 
sionally with a note of black. The 
paste of this porcelain was of a hard 
uniform texture, pure white, and de¬ 
noted careful manipulation in manufac¬ 
ture. A few pieces were partly deco¬ 
rated in relief. Such of these as sur¬ 
vived went to form the superb Imperial 
Collection in Dresden, but unfortunately 
when they were removed from their 
original setting in the Japanese Palace 
no note was made of their placing 
there, a great pity since they were all 
carefully marked with dates of importa¬ 
tion and other data when placed in the 
Elector’s “palace.” The appearance of 
the Japanese Imperial Crest, the Kiku- 
mon on pieces in the Dresden collec¬ 
tion, as on pieces in the collection 
formed by the Duke of Devonshire at 
Chatsworth, recalls the imperial Jap¬ 
anese edict, which forbade the exporta¬ 
tion from Japan of any piece of porce¬ 
lain decorated with the Imperial Crest. 
One of the early potters, Tomimura 
Kanyemon, is supposed to have sold 
pieces so decorated to the Dutch, and, 
being detected in the illicit act, was 
sentenced to commit hara kari and so 
met his death. Notwithstanding the 
vicissitudes of the potters as well as of 
the traders, Japanese porcelain manu¬ 
facture progressed apace, reaching its 
zenith between 1750 and 1830, roughly 
speaking, and embracing the famous 
porcelain products of Hizen, Kyoto, 
Satsuma, Kutani, Owari, Bizen, Taka- 
tori, Banko, Izumo and Yatsushiro. Of 
these the porcelains of Hizen are, his¬ 
torically, the most interesting, being the 
wares we have already traced in connec¬ 
tion with their introduction to the 
Western world. 
Since, in later years, nearly all the 
(Continued on page 84) 
