"Old Indian porcelain," marked with a parallelogram.
"Indian and Saxon black porcelain," marked with a P.
The cross mark is of value as showing the opinion entertained in Europe at so early a time as to what was Japanese, but must of course be accepted with some reserve. It may be added that nearly all the Japanese specimens are what we know as "Old Japan," made in Imari for exportation. The triangle is useful to help us in distinguishing white Oriental from early Dresden, Fulham, or Plymouth porcelain, which were close copies of the first. The most curious specimens are those marked with a parallelogram, and are called Old Indian. Many of these appear to be Oriental porcelain, originally white, and decorated in Europe, probably in Holland. The same style of painting is to be found on five vases bearing the arms and initials of Augustus the Strong, said to have been ordered for the King by the Dutch in 1703, but probably executed in Holland. These vases seem to be Chinese porcelain with ornaments in very low relief, over which the arms have been painted, together with a decoration in the Japanese style.
XXVII
SECTION II
JAPANESE
PORCELAIN
AND
POTTERY
CHAPTER XXVII
A SHORT SKETCH AND MARKS OF JAPANESE PORCELAIN AND POTTERY
Although we do not possess any complete documentary evidence on Ceramics in Japan, and although much of what we do know has been obtained by Englishmen in that country, there is no doubt that this art had its origin in remote antiquity, and that the Japanese seem always to have possessed in a high degree a very vivid sentiment of decoration, happily combined with an extraordinary facility of execution.
The making of porcelain only dates from the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Shonsui, returning from China, where he had learned the secrets of the trade, constructed several furnaces in localities where he found the necessary materials. He settled at Arita, in Hizen, the nearest port to which is Imari, a name familiar to all collectors as a common name for all Japanese porcelain. But this old Imari is always white with designs painted in blue under the glaze.
A hundred years after an Imari potter learnt, under the direction of a Chinese established at Nagasaki, the art of painting and decorating in various colours the porcelain which he sold to Chinese merchants. They in their turn exported it to Europe through the East India Company, so that considerable quantities arrived in England, where it is found to-day in a large number of families which have preserved the tastes of their forefathers. Arita or Imari were names indifferently applied to this porcelain.