Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/405

 Japan to foreign intercourse, and a considerable numer of pieces found their way to Europe. Good specimens are now almost unprocurable. Those usually offered for sale are the productions of one of three factories; namely, Otokoyama, Ota, or Etchūjima. Otokoyama is in the neighbourhood of Nishihama, in the same province of Kishiu. A kiln was set up there about the year 1847, and until 1866 wares were produced, some after the fashion of the original Kaira-kuen-yaki, some decorated with bleu sous couverte, and some having céladon glazes. They were by no means of first-class quality. The céladons and blue-and-whites were marked Nanki Otoko-yama, but the imitations of the Oniwa-yaki generally bore no cachet. Ota is a village lying some three miles to the east of Nishihama. Up to the year 1874 the keramic industry had not been carried on there. But at that date a workman called Miyai Saguro, inspired by the favour which the original Kairakuen-yaki found with foreign collectors, opened a factory at Ota, and attempted to reproduce Hozen's inimitable glazes. He failed signally, but there is no doubt that many of his pieces were sold to unwary amateurs. The same prospect of gain led simultaneously to the opening of another factory at Etchujima, in Tōkyō, so that the market was flooded for a time with gaudily glazed vases of most faulty technique, some of which were exported, while others gravitated to their proper level in the windows of barbers' shops or on the shelves of lumber-stores in the purlieus of the metropolis.

It may be added here, with regard to the Ota-yaki mentioned above, that after Miyai's attempt to reproduce the Oniwa-yaki had failed, two of his fellow-workmen, Shosaburo and Sensuke, turned their attention