Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/367

 stone at Shirakami and opened a factory there. They enjoyed the patronage of the feudal chief of the district, and their industry gradually increased until it gave occupation to over thirty potters working at about twenty factories. The ware is a coarse variety of blue-and-white porcelain, similar to the Izumo porcelain mentioned above, and the manufacture is limited to ordinary household utensils.

At Nagahama, in the same province, there is also produced a species of Raku ware resembling, but more brittle than, the Kyōtō Raku-yaki. It was originated at the beginning of the eighteenth century by a potter called Nagami Fusazo, and the industry was continued without interruption by his descendants of the same name. Like other wares intended for the use of the tea-clubs, it enjoyed, from time to time, the special patronage of local magnates, but it merits no detailed description, being simply an imitation of the well-known Raku faience of Kyōtō.

The first pottery of the province of Sanuki was of the Raku type. Its originator was Akamatsu Kihei. He opened a factory (1573) at Daikucho, in the Kagawa district, and used clay obtained from the celebrated old battle-field of Yashima. This Raku-yaki had nothing to recommend it, and attracted no attention,attention. [sic] Some seventy years later (1647), Prince Matsudaira Yorishige, on the occasion of moving to Takamatsu (the chief town of Sanuki), invited thither a potter of Awata (Kyōtō), called Sakubei Shigetoshi. Sakubei was an expert of considerable skill. He is said by some to have been a pupil of the renowned Nomura Ninsei, and to have settled at Awata for the purpose