ftERAMIC studio 
277 
that name in the province of Bizen. Here pottery was made 
at an early date, but it did not attract attention before the 
end of the fifteenth century. The paste was a gritty red, 
while its unglazed surface fitted it only for the manufacture 
of the most ordinary classes of house utensils. About 1580 a 
considerable improvement was noted. The clay was manipu- 
lated more carefully, and some of the specimens have been 
favorably compared with the Chinese " bocarro," which they 
no doubt were intended to imitate. The best pieces of this 
old Bizen were stamped with a new moon (Mikazuki) or a 
waning moon (Kayezuki), or with the name " Kokubei," while 
a slightly inferior variety bears the delineation of a cherry 
blossom. Originally the terms Bizen and Imbe were inter- 
changeable, but by degrees the former came to be applied to 
the unglazed, and the latter to the glazed specimens, while a 
third term, Hidasuki, was introduced to describe a variety in 
which the surface is marbled by irregular patches or lines of 
red. This marbled effect was obtained by tieing straw ropes 
around the pieces before they were placed in the oven, and 
an approved specimen of the rough unglazed result is said to 
easily command a purchaser at fifty to a hundred dollars. 
Towards the close of the seventeenth century the character of 
this ware became greatly improved. A slate-colored or brown 
paste, fine as pipe-clay and almost as hard as porcelain, was 
used to model figures of deities, genii, birds, fishes, and myth- 
ical animals. Later, a red clay was used, and the glaze ap- 
plied to it gave, in color and metallic sheen, exactly the ap- 
pearance of the beautiful Sentoku, or golden bronze. Speci- 
mens of that period have been placed among the very highest 
achievements of Japanese art, and there is no more thoroughly 
characteristic ware of old Japan. The Bizen pottery of the 
present day has degenerated, as may be gathered from the fig- 
ures of obese deities and absurd monsters which abound in 
some of our bric-a-brac stores. 
richness. His decoration usually consisted of storks flying 
among clouds, or of simple combinations of lines, etc. A 
peculiarity of his ware is that the designs were engraved in 
the pate and afterwards filled with white clay before glazing. 
Higo ware is, in fact, a copy of the Korean pottery known in 
Japan as Unkaku. to which, though slightly inferior in point 
of glaze, it is decidedly superior in beauty and delicacy of 
finish. 
Banko is a Japanese word meaning "everlasting" or 
"changeless", and was applied by Kuwanami Gozayemon, a 
rich merchant of Kuwana in the province of Ise, to the ob- 
jects he produced between 1760 and 1795. From his promi- 
nent social position he commanded the attention of high offi- 
cials, among whom was the Shogun Iyenari, who entrusted 
him with a special order. His ware soon became the rage 
everywhere, and since he did not work for gain, only the fav- 
ored few could obtain specimens of his handicraft. Hitherto, 
he had restricted himself to imitating ancient models, but be- 
tween 1785 and 1795 he gave the reins to his fancy and pro- 
duced several pieces which combined the graces of the Japan- 
ese school with the brilliancy of the Chinese polychromatic 
porcelain. He also secured, through the Shogun's influence, 
the celebrated Chinese recipes from the Imperial factory at 
King-te-chang, and thus succeeded in turning out pieces which 
were hardly distinguishable from the fine Chinese porcelain 
decorated with the red and green enamels of the Wan-lieh 
period. 
Some thirty years after his death, which occurred about 
1800, it chanced that one of his recipes fell into the hands of 
a dealer in bric-a-brac, who lived at Kuwana, and whose son, 
Mori Yusetsu, had already gained some distinction as an imi- 
tator of Baku faience. Yusetsu determined to profit by his 
good fortune, and to assure success he pursuaded Gozaye- 
mon's grandson to sell him the famous Banko stamp. Hav- 
NABESHIMA 
The renowned Japanese warrior, Kato Kiyomasa, on his 
return from Korea in 1592 — the first year of the Japanese in- 
vasion of that country — brought with him a Korean potter, 
named Sonkai, who settled at Toda in the province of Higo. 
Ceramic factories had existed there for centuries before Son- 
kai's arrival, but only very coarse utensils had been produced. 
He soon discovered that the neighboring island Amakusa 
yielded excellent potter's earth. Using the best materials he 
could find, which gave a fine iron-red pate, he succeeded in 
making one of the most delicate and aesthetic of all Japanese 
faiences. The red color of the clay combined with the pearl 
gray of the diaphanous glaze produced a tint of surpassing 
ing observed that the Chinese artists, whose works he took 
for his models, used moulds applied internally for their more 
elaborate pieces, he too adopted that method, and thus 
caused the name of Banko to become associated with the in- 
troduction of a valuable novelty in Japanese ceramics. He re- 
versed the method of the Kioto artist, Mokubei, who fashioned 
his clay in the mould, by putting the mould inside the vase, 
and pressing the clay with the hand into the matrix. Thus 
his pieces carried the designs on the inner as well as on the 
outer surface. His moulds, instead of being divided into two 
parts, were built up of six, eight and even twelve longitudi- 
nal sections, which were withdrawn one by one after they had 
