shippon.

1875 C. Pfoundes Fu-so Mimi Bukuro 179 Temples and pagodas built of Shipo—seven precious jewels.

1880 Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan 8 270 The various ingredients used in the preparation of the colour..are..the same as are used for the production of cloisonné enamel (shippô yaki).

1881 Trans. Asiatic Soc. Japan 10 41 A broken piece of old Shippô ware.

1889 tr. Rein's Industries of Japan iii. 430 The metal decorations of the Japanese by means of enamel (Shippô), i.e. opaque coloured glassy flux.

1962 H. Garner Chinese & Japanese Cloisonné Enamels x. 100 The term shippō, used in Japan to describe enamels, literally means ‘seven precious things’. It was used originally to describe a group of materials including gold, silver, and various jewels whose identity is a little uncertain.

1964 H. B. Boger Traditional Arts of Japan xxiii. 311 It was not until the closing years of the sixteenth century that the art of working with enamels was actually introduced into Japan from China, and because it resembled the seven precious things mentioned in Buddhist sutras, it was called shippo, literally meaning seven-treasures.

1987 Los Angeles Times 5 Feb. v. 5/1 Seventy-one Japanese enamels from the 14th through the 20th centuries will be on view at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in ‘Shippo: the Art of Enameling in Japan’ starting today.