The views of Becher on the composition of substances mark little essential advance on those of the two preceding centuries, and the three elements or principles of salt, mercury and sulphur reappear as the vitrifiable, the mercurial and the combustible earths.
Not until the year 1620 do we find any evidence of the style for which Arita porcelain afterwards became famous, namely, decoration with vitrifiable enamels.
To this increase in production and to the more elaborate application of vitrifiable enamels may be attributed the erroneous idea that Satsuma faience decorated with gold and colored enamels had its origin at the close of the 18th century.
Decoration with vitrifiable enamels over the glaze, though it began to be practised at Owari about the year 1840, never became a speciality of tile place.
These men seldom use vitrifiable enamels, pigments being much more tractable and less costly.