JAPANESE ART INTRODUCTORY LACQUER WARE, POTTERY AND PORCELAIN
Japanese art is a subject which invites
exhaustive treatment. To deal with it adequately
in two or three chapters of a general work on Japan
is obviously impossible. Still it is, I think,
possible, within the limits at my disposal, to give
my readers some conception of that art to which Japan
is so greatly indebted for the extraordinary way in
which she has impressed the world. The art of
Japan is in a sense unique, and it may be that to
some extent the Japanese atmosphere, so to speak,
is essential in order to fully appreciate it.
Mr. Chamberlain, in his “Things Japanese,”
has observed that “To show a really fine piece
of lacquer to one of the uncultivated natives of Europe
or America is, as the Japanese proverb says, like giving
guineas to a cat.” Much the same remark
might, however, be made in reference to the art products
of any country. Be that as it may, the Japanese
people are now largely dependent on the foreigner for
art patronage. It may be that this has resulted
in art-artisans abandoning their old standard and
devoting themselves to the manufacture of whatever
pays best, prostituting the spirit of art to the promptings
of gain, and compelling the native to cater for foreign
taste rather than to adhere to Japanese canons of
art. I am afraid that the commercial spirit is
fatal to art of any kind. The true artist, like
the poet, in an ideal state of existence would only
work under inspiration, but, unfortunately, the artist,
like the poet, is daily faced by that necessity which
knows no law and demands the subsistence of the body
as an essential for work of any kind.
Perhaps some of my readers might desire
a definition of art. There are, I know, people
in this world who can never approach the consideration
of or deal with any subject unless the subject itself
and every term in connection therewith is precisely
defined. In reference to Japanese art I am inclined
to employ the words of Mr. Walter Crane in opening,
many years ago, the annual exhibition of the Arts
and Crafts Society. He remarked: “The
true root and basis of all art lies in the handicrafts.
If there is no room or chance of recognition for really
artistic power and feeling in design and craftsmanship if
art is not recognised in the humblest object and material,
and felt to be as valuable, in its own way, as the
more highly rewarded pictorial skill the
art cannot be in a sound condition. And if artists
cease to be found among the crafts, there is great
danger that they will vanish from the arts also, and
become manufacturers and salesmen instead.”
Japanese art is unquestionably of
that kind which requires a certain educational process.
It does not, for instance, at once appeal to that
vague entity the “man in the street.”
There is a grotesqueness about some of it, a lack
of perspective in much of it, which is caviare to a
large number of persons. This much, however, can
be said about Japanese art that it is original.
It is almost altogether the outcome of the artistic
instincts of the people. Undoubtedly it has been
to a large extent influenced by Buddhism, and, as
we have seen, Buddhism is a foreign religion; but
at the same time I think it may fairly be asserted
that, though the Buddhist religion may have influenced
and utilised Japanese art, it has never killed, or
indeed affected to any degree, what I may term the
individualistic artistic instincts of the nation.
Japanese art requires to be closely studied. It
is something that grows upon one, and the closer it
is studied the greater its influence. To me one
of its most pleasing features is what I have termed
in the Preface its catholicity. It is not, as
art is in so many European countries, the cult of
a few, a sort of Eleusynian mystery into which a select
number of persons have been initiated. It has,
on the contrary, permeated, and exercised an influence
upon, the whole nation, and been employed for even
the most humble purposes. It is for this reason
that, as I have previously observed, I am of opinion
the Japanese may be considered and described as the
most artistic people in the world.
I have referred to the grotesqueness
and lack of perspective incidental to some descriptions
of Japanese art. It certainly neglects chiaroscuro
and linear perspective, and it displays an entire lack
of form knowledge. The human figure and face
have apparently never been studied at all. The
colouring is frequently splendid, while the figures
are for the most part anatomically incorrect.
One would think that Japanese artists had never seen
their own or any other human bodies. A rigid
adherence to conventionality is, in my opinion, a
defect of all Japanese art. By conventionality
I do not, of course, mean what I may term the individuality
of the art itself, but the fact that Japanese artists
have felt themselves largely bound by the traditions
of their art to treat the human and other figures not
in accordance with nature, but altogether in accordance
with the conventions of that art, and to entirely
ignore perspective. I am quite aware that some
enthusiastic lovers of things Japanese admire, or
affect to admire, these defects. They have been
described as a protest against the too rigid rules
exacted in Western art. I suggest, however, that
art in its highest form should seek to be true to
nature, and in so far as Japanese art fails in this
respect it is, I think, defective. At the same
time I cordially admit that its defects are more than
compensated by its splendid workmanship, its gorgeous
colouring, and its striking originality.
It was only about forty or fifty years
ago that Japanese art became known to any extent in
Europe. Certainly the Portuguese missionaries
introduced by Francis Xavier and the traders in the
Dutch factory at Nagasaki were in the habit of exporting
a few articles to Europe, chiefly porcelain ware made
to order. I fear both missionaries and merchants
regarded Japanese art, as we now know it, as barbaric,
and never in the slightest degree realised either
its beauties or its originality. Neither they
nor the many millions of art-lovers in Europe dreamt
that Japan was a country where art was universal, not
esoteric an art with schools, traditions,
masters, and masterpieces. Probably the Paris
Exhibition of 1867, to which the Prince of Satsuma
sent a collection of Japanese artistic treasures, was
the occasion when the true inwardness of Japanese
art burst upon the Western world as a whole.
It was a veritable revelation. It at once aroused
enthusiasm and curiosity, and I fear cupidity, among
European artists and art collectors. Europe was
awakened to the possibilities of Japan as an art nation,
and Japan, failing to realise or properly appreciate
the artistic accumulated wealth it possessed, commenced
to part with it in a truly reckless manner. The
depletion of the art treasures of the country commenced
about this time, and though that depletion has been
largely arrested, it is nevertheless still, to some
extent, going on.
Japanese art, as it has come under
the cognisance of a foreigner, may be considered in
connection with four or five purposes to which it has
been employed or adapted. First amongst these
I place lacquer, next pottery and porcelain, then
carving in wood and iron, metal-work and painting.
The lacquer industry has been in existence in Japan
so long as we have any authoritative history of the
country. If any credence is to be given to tradition,
long before the Christian era there was an official
whose sole duty it was to superintend the production
of lacquer for the Imperial Court, and specimens over
a thousand years old, though rare, still exist.
The process of lacquering is a somewhat intricate
one, and varies, of course, in accordance with the
time and labour spent on the article to be lacquered,
and the cost of the same. After the article has
been carefully made from specially selected wood in
the case of the choicest specimens of lacquer work
this is usually a pine-wood of fine grain it
is first coated with a preparation composed of clay
and varnish, which, after being permitted to dry,
is smoothed down with a whetstone. When this operation
has been concluded, the article proposed to be lacquered
is covered with some substance, either silk, cloth,
or paper. It is then given from one to five coats
of the foregoing mixture, each coat being permitted
to dry before the next is applied. After this
has been effected, the whetstone is again employed
with a view of obtaining a perfectly smooth surface
when the lacquering proper commences. This may
be a perfunctory or it may be a very complicated operation,
according to the value of the article, layer after
layer of the varnish from one to fifty
coats being laid upon the material at intervals.
After the final coat has been applied, the smoothing
process commences. The whole of these operations
are, however, only the preliminaries to the scheme
of decoration, which is often very elaborate.
The dusts of powders used for this purpose are of
various kinds and of varying cost. When the ornamentation
which often consists in colouring the groundwork with
particles of gold dust has been completed, sometimes
as many as a dozen coatings of transparent lacquer
are imposed upon the same.
The art of lacquering in Japan dates
back at least 1,200 or 1,300 years, and tradition
assigns it a period more ancient still. There
are, however, few if any articles of lacquer ware now
in the country, whose origin can be traced back so
many years. At any rate, there is no satisfactory
evidence in regard to the antiquity of any specimens
of lacquer ware dating back more than seven or eight
centuries. In old Japan the manufacturer of lacquer
work was intimately associated with the domestic life
of the upper classes. Griffis tells us that nearly
every Daïmio had his Court lacquerer, and that
a set of household furniture and toilet utensils was
part of the dowry of a noble lady. On the birth
of a daughter, he relates, it was common for the lacquer
artist to begin the making of a mirror case, a washing
bowl, a cabinet, a clothes rack, or a chest of drawers,
often occupying from one to five whole years on a
single article. An inro, or pill-box, might require
several years for perfection, though small enough to
go into a fob. By the time the young lady was
marriageable, her outfit of lacquer was superb.
The names of many of the great lacquer
artists of Japan are still venerated. The masterpieces
of Hoyami Koyetsu who flourished in the sixteenth
century, are still, though rare, procurable. Japan
numbers on her roll of fame twenty-eight great lacquer
artists. There have, of course, been many hundreds,
and indeed thousands, in the past centuries whose
work was superb, but the twenty-eight are deemed to
be the immortals of this particular art. One of
these great men, Ogawa Ritsuo, is famous for the number
and variety of the materials mother-of-pearl,
coral, tortoise-shell, &c. &c., he used in his work.
A profuse richness is its chief characteristic.
One of his pupils imitated in his work various materials pottery
and wood-carving, and bronzes. The last famous
artist in lacquer, Watanobe Tosu, died about thirty
years ago. Whether he is destined to have a successor
or successors remains to be seen. These lacquer
artists, as I have indicated, worked not for lucre,
but for love. Attached to some Daïmios household,
they devoted their lives, their energies, their imagination,
their artistic instincts to the devising of splendid
work and the making of beautiful, ingenious, absolutely
artistic and, at the same time, entirely useful articles.
It is impossible within the space
at my disposal to deal in detail with the large variety
of lacquer work produced in Japan with the various
kinds of lacquer, or with what I may term the artistic
idiosyncrasies of Japanese lacquer work. One can
now hardly believe that until the opening up of Japan
half a century or so ago, few specimens of lacquer
found their way to Europe, although Japanese porcelain
had been largely imported and was highly prized.
Even at the present time I do not think that the artistic
beauties of Japanese lacquer work have been appreciated
in this country to anything like the extent they deserve
to be. I have heard people remark, for example,
that they failed to understand the perpetual reproduction
of the great snow-covered mountain Fusi-Yama in Japanese
designs, while they could see nothing in these storks,
bewildering landscapes, and grotesque figures.
Perhaps the best explanation of the constant appearance
of Fusi-Yama in all Japanese work is that which De
Fonblanque gives. He says: “If there
is one sentiment universal amongst all Japanese, it
is a deep and earnest reverence for their sacred mountain.
It is their ideal of the beautiful in nature, and
they never tire of admiring, glorifying, and reproducing
it. It is painted, embossed, carved, engraved,
modelled in all their wares. The mass of the
people regard it not only as the shrine of their dearest
gods, but the certain panacea for their worst evils,
from impending bankruptcy or cutaneous diseases to
unrequited love or ill-luck at play. It is annually
visited by thousands and thousands of pilgrims.”
The Japanese artist in constantly reproducing Fusi-Yama
has merely voiced national sentiment and feeling.
The substance applied to wood to produce
what is called lacquer, is not what is generally known
in England as varnish. It is really the sap of
the rhus vernicifera which contains, among other
ingredients, about 3 per cent. of a gum soluble in
water. It has to undergo various refining processes
before being mixed with the colouring matter, while
the greatest care is exercised throughout with a view
of obviating the possibility of dust or any other
foreign matter finding its way into the mixture.
The fine polish usually seen on lacquer work is not
actually the result of the composition applied, but
is produced by incessant polishing. The lacquered
articles in old Japan were used for various purposes mirror
cases, fans, letter-carriers, the inro, which was
at one time a necessary part of every Japanese gentleman’s
attire; it was secured to the sash, and utilised to
hold medicine powders, for perfumes, as a seal-box,
&c., seals being at one time, as indeed they are to
some extent still, in use in place of a signature.
But the amount of ancient lacquer ware now in Japan,
or, indeed, of artistic articles made solely for use
and not merely to sell, is, as I have said, small.
European collectors have denuded the country; the
treasures of the Daïmios, which were almost recklessly
sold when they were disestablished, and to a large
extent disendowed, have been distributed all over
the globe, and a large quantity, perhaps the largest
quantity, of the lacquer work now made in the country
is manufactured solely for the purpose of being sold
as curios either at home or abroad. That this
fact has largely lowered the artistic ideals and debased
the artistic taste in Japan appears to be the general
opinion. Much of the present-day work of Japan
in lacquer, as in other articles, is certainly to
my mind artistic and beautiful in the extreme, but
obviously, men working almost against time to turn
out “curios,” for which there is a persistent
demand on the part of visitors who are not always
by temperament or training fitted to appreciate the
artistic or the beautiful, are unlikely to produce
such fine or original work as the artisan of old leisurely
employed at his craft and pluming himself, not on
the amount of his earnings or the extent of his output,
but on the quality and artistic merits of his work.
Next to lacquer in importance amongst
the Japanese arts, I think, comes ceramic ware, which
has long had a great vogue in Europe, and indeed was
highly prized here many years before the artistic skill
of the Japanese in lacquer was generally known.
That decorative art, as expressed in the pottery and
porcelain of Japan, has been largely influenced by
China and Korea seems to be unquestionable. The
Japanese have nevertheless imparted to it a peculiar
charm of their own, the outcome of originality in
ideas, while the art has, through many centuries,
been fortunate enough to have been fostered and encouraged
by the great and powerful of the land. As a people
the Japanese are entirely free from anything that
savours of ostentation, and this fact is emphasised
in their art just as it is in their homes. The
charm of the ceramic ware of Japan, in my opinion,
consists in the beauty of its colouring rather than
in its figuring. This ceramic ware, as my readers
probably know, differs greatly in appearance, quality,
and, I may add, in price according to the particular
part of the country in which it is produced.
It is not necessary to be an art connoisseur to grasp
the fact that, say, the famous Satsuma ware is distinct
in almost every respect from that of Imari, Kaga,
Ise, Raku, Kyoto, &c. All these different wares
have charms peculiar to each. It is really marvellous
to think that a country with such a comparatively small
area as Japan should have produced so many different
kinds of ceramic ware, each possessing distinct and
pronounced characteristics, and having indeed little
affinity with each other save in regard to the general
excellence of the workmanship and the artistic completeness
of the whole.
As I have said, both Korea and China
have had a marked influence on the manufacture of
pottery and porcelain in Japan. Korean potters
appear to have settled there prior to the Christian
era, and to have imparted to the Japanese the first
rudiments of knowledge in regard to working in clay,
but the development of the process was greatly due
to Chinese influences. During the thirteenth
century, one Toshiro paid a visit to China, where
he exhaustively studied everything relating to the
potter’s art. On his return to his own country
he introduced great improvements, both in manufacture
and decoration, and made, it is believed, for the
first time, glazed pottery. Soon afterwards household
utensils of lacquer began to go out of use, being replaced
by those made of clay, and a great impetus was accordingly
given to the trade of the potter. Tea, which
is believed to have been introduced into Japan from
China in the year 800 does not appear to have come
into general use till the sixteenth century. The
“tea ceremonies” known as the Cha-no-yu
came into vogue about the same time, and undoubtedly
had an immense influence on the ceramic art. The
articles used in the “tea ceremonies” included
an iron kettle resting on a stand; a table or stand
of mulberry wood 2 feet high; two tea-jars containing
the tea; a vessel containing fresh water; a tea-bowl.
It is not my purpose to describe the many interesting
details of these “tea ceremonies.”
Suffice it to observe that they gave a great impetus
to the manufacture of costly and elaborate china.
The leaders of society, as we should term them, who
took part in these ceremonies exercised a judicious
and enlightened patronage of the ceramic art.
They encouraged rising talent, and welcomed new developments.
There can, I think, be no doubt that Japan, in an
artistic sense, owes much to the frequenters of these
“tea ceremonies.” Tea-jars and tea-bowls
especially became, under the patronage and guidance
of these men, choice works of art, and were bestowed
by the great and powerful on their friends, by whom
they were greatly cherished and handed down as heirlooms.
Some of these treasures still remain in the country,
a large number have been purchased by art connoisseurs
and taken to various parts of the world, while many,
of course, have from various causes perished.
Under the conditions of life which obtained in old
Japan the ceramic art reached a pitch of excellence,
not to say glory, which it is never likely to attain
either in Japan or elsewhere. It was emphatically
a period of art for art’s sake. The patronage,
if I may use a word perhaps not strictly accurate,
of the great artists of those days was exercised in
such a manner as to enable them to employ all their
talents, artistic ideals, and enthusiasm in the direction
of producing masterpieces of their craft.
The secrets of porcelain manufacture
are believed to have been brought to Japan from China
about the beginning of the sixteenth century.
In the year 1513, Gorodayu, Shonsui, of Ise, returned
from China and settled in Arita, in the province of
Hizen, which at once became and still remains the
headquarters of the famous Imari ware. The porcelain
produced here is chiefly, but not altogether, the blue
and white combination, but Arita also makes porcelain
ware decorated in various colours and exceedingly
ornate in appearance. It is, however, stated
that this ornate Imari ware was first made for exportation
to China to supply the Portuguese market at Macao,
and that it was afterwards fostered by the Dutch at
Nagasaki, whose exportations of the ware to Europe
were on a considerable scale. This peculiar style
of decoration is believed to have been due to the
demands of the Dutch, whose patrons in Europe would
have none other. One remark I may make in this
connection, viz., that those enormous vases and
other similar articles of Japanese ware which have
long been so greatly prized in Europe, and many of
which are magnificent specimens of decorative art,
are not, in one sense, characteristically Japanese.
The Japanese has always, if I may so express it, used
art as the handmaiden of utilitarianism. Every
article intended for the Japanese home had to be not
merely a thing of beauty but a thing for use.
It never entered the minds of the Japanese to hang
beautiful specimens of their porcelain ware on their
walls, or what did duty for walls, to collect dust.
They used vases certainly of a moderate size to hold
flowers, tea-pots and tea-cups for the purpose of
making and drinking tea, water-bottles and various
other articles for domestic use; everything in fact
was, as I have said, designed not only from an artistic
but a utilitarian standpoint, and hence it is, I think,
that art, as I have already remarked, has permeated
the whole people. Even in the poorest house in
Japan it is possible to see, in the ordinary articles
in domestic use, some attempt at art, and, I may add,
some appreciation of it on the part of the users of
those articles. In my opinion when art is not
applied to articles of general utility but is confined
to articles not intended for use, art becomes, as
is largely the case in this country, either the cult
of a class or the affectation of a class, and its
beauties and inward meaning cease to have any effect
upon, just because they are not understood by, the
great mass of the people.
Satsuma ware is probably the most
widely known, and the most esteemed among foreigners,
of Japanese porcelain. Its soft, cream-like colour
is now known in every part of the world, while the
delicate colour decorations imposed upon the cream-like
background, certainly give a most effective appearance.
I question however whether, from a purely artistic
standpoint, Satsuma is worthy of being compared with
many of the other porcelains in Japan. Much of
it as seen in Europe was specially made for Europe,
and having been so is, I suggest, not in the true
sense artistic. As a matter of fact Satsuma ware
was introduced from Korea, and was made in the first
instance solely for the use of the Prince of Satsuma
and his friends. The kilns were originally built
on Korean models, and the potters in Satsuma remained
a class apart, not being allowed to marry with the
outside world.
Kaga ware is well known to all art
connoisseurs. This porcelain is rare. The
masters of the art of Kaga ware, with its exquisite
colouring and elaborate ornamentation in gold and silver,
have left no successors, while their output was small.
The ware is of course still made, and as the clay
of the district is of a dark red colour, the ware
has a uniform tint.
Bizen ware reached the apotheosis
of its perfection just before the Revolution.
It is made in the province of Bizen. The better
kind is made of a white or light bluish clay, and
well baked in order to receive the red-brown colour,
whereas the commoner kind is of a red clay.
The various Kyoto wares are remarkable
for their quaint forms, and some of them are highly
prized.
It would, of course, be impossible
for me to attempt in detail a description of the other
very numerous ceramic wares of Japan. Undoubtedly,
as I have said, Satsuma is the most popular with Europeans,
but it is not, and I do not think it deserves to be,
the most highly prized by art connoisseurs. The
ceramic wares of Japan may be classified under three
headings: (1) Pottery, ornamented by scoring
and glazing; (2) A cream-coloured faience with a glaze
often crackled and delicately painted; (3) Hard porcelain.
Under the first of these classifications may be included
Bizen, Seto, Raku, and some other wares. Under
the second I place Satsuma and some less important
similar products. Among the porcelains the most
famous are those of Kutania, Hizen, and Kyoto.
In regard to decorations, the Japanese have utilised
the seven gods of good fortune, many landscapes, a
few of the domestic animals the dragon,
phoenix, an animal with the body and hoofs of a deer,
the tail of a bull, and with a horn on its forehead,
a monster lion, and the sacred tortoise. Trees,
plants, grasses, and flowers of various kinds, and
some of the badges in Japanese heraldry are also largely
made use of. However grotesque some of these objects
may be, or however grotesque the representations of
animals and even landscapes may be, no one who has
closely studied it can deny the fact that the effect
of Japanese decorative art as applied to the ceramic
ware of the country is, on the whole, magnificent.
The more one studies it the more impressed one is
with its marvellous beauty and the originality which
has been brought to bear upon it. I defy any man
or woman, who possesses the artistic sensibilities,
even in a latent degree, to visit a gallery containing
the masterpieces of Japanese ceramic art, closely
study them in all their details, and minutely examine
the attention which the artist has given to even the
smallest of those details without being impressed
by its power. It is, I consider, a liberal education
to any person who has the slightest prepossession
for art to wander through such a gallery and admire
the masterpieces of these wonderful art-workers of
Japan.
The demand for the various art products
of Japan in both Europe and America has had its perhaps
inevitable result in not only the manufacture of articles
simply and solely for the foreign market, but in the
what I may term faking of modern to represent ancient
art productions. “Old” Satsuma, for
example, is a case in point. The genuine old
Satsuma ware, by constant use, obtained, like meerschaum,
a delightful tint. Modern Satsuma is comparatively
white, and so, in order to pander to the taste of
the European collector of the ancient article, the
modern is stained to the required shade. The article
itself is genuine, and indeed beautiful, but this “faking”
of it to meet European and American tastes is one
of the results, I fear, of Western influences.
What the precise effect of European influences may
be on the old porcelain art of Japan it is impossible
to say. So far as I am concerned, I have no hesitation
in expressing my own opinion that it will not be a
healthy influence. Art for art’s sake is,
I admit, difficult when the plutocrats of the West,
with a craze or a fad for Eastern art, are pouring
out their wealth in order to obtain specimens thereof.
Demand usually induces supply, and the Japanese artisan
of to-day would be more than human did he not respond
to the demand of the West for “Old Satsuma”
and other specimens of the artistic treasures in pottery
and porcelain of Japan. The spirit of commercialism
is, as I have said before, fatal to art. If the
artist is forced to work quickly and cheaply he quite
evidently cannot bring his individuality into play.
He must transform his studio into a workshop, and
ponder only, or chiefly, upon the possibility of his
output. I have been much struck in this connection
with the remarks of a writer in regard to orders for
art work sent from New York to Japan. “I
can remember,” he said, “one of our great
New York dealers marking on his samples the colours
that pleased most of his buyers, who themselves were
to place the goods. All other colours or patterns
were tabooed in his instructions to the makers in Japan.
This was the rude mechanism of the change, the coming
down to the worst public taste, which must be that
of the greatest number at any time.”
As regards the modern porcelain of
Japan I need say but little. Originality is apparently
dead, and the makers of to-day are content to copy
the past. No doubt the purely mechanical processes
of manufacture have been greatly improved, and much,
if not most, of the modern ceramic ware of Japan is
extremely beautiful. At the same time some of
it, especially that which is made solely for the foreign
market, is to my mind neither artistic nor beautiful.
It is decorated, if I may use such a term, in most
of the colours of the rainbow, and rendered more gaudy
still by a plethora of very poor gilding.
There is in Japan a certain school
of progressive ideas in reference to the art of the
country. This school is of opinion that Japanese
art should not, so to speak, remain stereotyped, but
that it should assimilate and adapt and apply all
that is good and beautiful in Western art. The
objects that this school has in view are no doubt
laudable, but I confess I hope with all my heart that
those objects will fail of accomplishment. There
has been already far too much Europeanising of Japanese
art, and the result, so far as I have been able to
judge, is not encouraging in respect of any further
advance or development in that direction. Japanese
art, and especially the ceramic art, possesses, as
I have before said, an individuality which can only
be spoiled, even if it be not destroyed, by adding
on to or mixing up with it the totally distinct art
and art methods of Western civilisation. Were
this done it would become a bastard or a mongrel art,
and, as history affords abundant evidence, would in
due course lapse into a condition of utter decadence.
Quite a volume might be written on
the subject of marks on Japanese pottery and porcelain.
These have long interested and frequently misled the
collector. They are of various kinds. Sometimes
there is a mark signifying the reign or part of the
reign of an emperor, or the name of a place at which
the article was made, or, more frequently still, the
name of the particular potter whose handicraft it was.
Sometimes Chinese dates are found impressed on the
article without any regard to chronological correctness.
Indeed, Chinese dates are to be found on Japanese
porcelain indicating a period long anterior to that
in which the manufacture of porcelain was known in
Japan. These spurious dates have proved pitfalls
for collectors. The mark is sometimes impressed
with a seal or painted; occasionally it is merely
scratched. The investigation of these marks is
a recondite study assuredly full of interest, but,
as I have said, prolific in pitfalls for the unwary
or the too-credulous.