The Japanese declare they received their first knowledge of art pottery from the Ko reans, but Western experts place their earliest glazed pieces not earlier than the 12th century A.D., and state that Kato Shirozaemon, in the 13th century, brought (after six years' study in China) over ceramic refinement to a factory at Seto. The connoisseurs at Nippon, with their °tea ceremonies,)) loved and revered the ancient homely earthenware of their tea service, and show little respect for the cold white glitter of porcelain. They produced none till that of the 16th century by Shonzui. The Japanese egg shell china excels, some claim, even the Chinese, in thinness, transparency and brilliance; their drawing and color work are perfection. Pecu liar to this nation are the painting in lacquer on porcelain, the cloisonné enamel china decora tion. Greatly admired of European collectors is their ivory-glaze Satsuma faience.
Little wonder is it that India and Persia took to imitating the styles of Chinese decora tion. ForEurope, once seeing the ware, quickly acquired its "Chinese taste' craze. From the 16th and into the 18th century immense quantities of Chinese and Japanese porcelain ware were brought into Europe by the Dutch and the East India trading companies' ships. These wares at first had genuine Chinese art in their decoration as well as Chinese form; but soon the traders had European ideas grafted on to made-to-order pieces and the truly Oriental style became obscured in a hybrid product.
Somewhere between the 9th and 12th cen turies the Persians learned to make lustre dec oration (mezza majolica) and we get here the so-called °Rhodes-Persian faience,)) Osmanli Turkish. From Arabia came the knowledge of enameling clay vessels into continental Europe, an art known in the East from very early times, as is proved by her ancient polychrome hand-painted tiles for walls and ceilings in her mosques. We find these same tiles and enam eled vases, etc., in opalescent metallic lustre in the true Arabian decoration, in Spain, in the old Hispano-Moresque buildings. And it was, probably, from these same conquering Moors that Italy obtained (through the island of Majorca) this tin enamel polychrome decora tion process (see MAJOLICA), which from the 15th century became a greatly popular fictile art in Italy. In the 15th century, Faenza, Pesaro, Gubbio, Urbino, Castel Durante, had majolica ovens. In this early Renaissance period the Della Robbia sculptor family created •their earthenware busts enveloped in tin-glaze (the so-called terra invetriata), Luca della Robbia claiming the discovery of using tin-glaze enamel to cover his statuary. In the 16th century we
have Gubbio, with its genius, Maestro Georgio, as centre of Italian majolica manu facture, with its ruby lustre; and the clever artist Orazio Fontana was working on this. ware in Urbino. The madre-perla lustre belongs to this time. The :graffiti decoration belongs to this period with its engobe coat ing scratched through to the body and finished in colored glaze.
In Germany glazed earthenware developed with its oven tiles (Kachel) and Cologne (about 1530), then Nuremberg, produced its falsely termed °Hirschvogel*jugs with their reliefs and colored glaze, to disappear in the 17th century. Next we find Germany produc ing smooth painted surface enamelware and (end of 16th century) the noted Rhenish salt glaze stoneware (Steinzeug) was made in Cologne, then Siegburg, Frechen, Raeren, Grenzburg, etc., with its quaint applied relief decoration, and odd forms, such as °rine vases, etc. This ware was long known as gr2s de Flandres. In France Bernhard Palissy, igno rant of the chemistry and practice of the cera mist, after many disastrous failures, produced an enamel decoration (see PALISSY) of brilliance and achieved fame through his nat uralistic animal and plant representations in relief on plafes, etc. In the middle of the 16th century arose tie deservedly noted Henri Deux i ware of Saint Porchaire with its intricate, yet artistic, strapwork inlays of brown clay on yellowish body, and its sprigged masacarons and other reliefs. At the end of the 16th or beginning of the 17th century Nevers started making true French faience, soon arriving at an extended palette. of glaze colors to cover the porous body withpolychrome decoration. Rouen soon followed, assisted by Nevers artisans. (See ROUEN). Early in the 18th cen tury Moustiers made such faience, and we find large faience factories at Bordeaux, Paris, Sinceny, Strassburg, Marseilles, Niderviller, Lille, etc. Talavera and Alcora in Spain pro duced this ware; Germany in Nuremberg, Hoechst, Frankenthal, etc. But already in 1680 Delft, Holland, had 30 potteries producing opaque enamel glazed tiles, and was soon shipping abroad large quantities of ware imi tating the Chinese blue-and-white decorated ware that was becoming so popular. See DELFT.