Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/401

 (1868), and is now limited to coarse ware for domestic use.

This is faience or stone-ware, produced at Maiko, in the Akashi district of Harima. The manufacture was inaugurated in 1820 by Mikuni Kyūhachi, whose grandson, Mosaburo, still carries it on. The Maiko-yaki never aspired to be called a decorative product. It was grey stone-ware, or faience, covered with diaphanous glaze, the only ornamentation being brown mottling or speckles. Sometimes, however, as is generally the case with the ruder wares of Japan, ingenious and artistic specimens of modelling are to be found among the works of the Maiko potters.

Akashi is the first town which a traveller by the Tōkaido, or great trunk road of Japan, reaches after entering the province of Harima. Tradition says that a factory was established in the Akashi district by the great Kyōtō artist (Nomura Ninsei), about 1650, at the request of the feudal chief of the province, and that faience after the Kyōtō style, but of very inferior quality, was produced. But the reputation of the ware never succeeded in extending beyond the district of its manufacture.

Another variety of Akashi ware is popularly known as Annam-yaki. It is rude, brown pottery, thinly glazed, and depending entirely upon conceits of shape. Its name is derived from its resemblance to faience supposed to have been imported from Annam. This manufacture was inaugurated by Yakichi, son of Mikuni Kyūhachi, the originator of the Maiko-yaki.