Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/237

 never showed originality consistent with their achievements in faience. Their designs were copied, for the most part, from Chinese models; their blue was of inferior quality, and they confined themselves chiefly to the production of insignificant pieces for domestic use. Rokubei of the second generation used the same stamp as his father, with the addition, however, of a second perimeter to the hexagon. He died in 1860, at the age of seventy-one, having retired from business in favour of his son, Shōun, twenty-two years previously (1838). Shōun, generally spoken of as Rokubei of the third generation, was a skilful potter. A well-known piece of his is a large pillar-lamp (tōro) of blue-and-white porcelain, which was placed in the grounds of the Imperial Palace in 1853, and stands there still. Lamps of this kind, but on a smaller scale, had often been made in Hizen. After Shōun's time several of them were produced in Kyōtō. Shōun used the same mark as his grandfather, Seisai, but generally substituted the cursive style of writing for the square. He died in 1883, and was succeeded by his son Shōrin, the present representative of the family, who manufactures both pottery and porcelain, decorating the latter with blue under the glaze as well as with vitrifiable enamels. Shōrin's marks are shown in the list of Marks and Seals. The ideographs of his stamp were written by the Abbot Aogusō, as were those of his father's by the Abbot Taigo, both of the monastery of Daitoku.

It has already been mentioned that Eisen was the first manufacturer of porcelain proper in Kyōtō, and that he began to pursue this branch of keramics about the year 1765. Among his pupils the most distinguished were Dōhachi and Mokubei, to both of