Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/428

 has been manufactured since 1780 by the Kishi family, who, as has been the case with many makers of Raku ware, carry on the business not by way of regular profession but as an occasional household industry. Materials, not being procurable in the district, are imported from Owari, but despite the heavy expense thus entailed, the little factory appears to prosper. It supplies local wants to some extent, and derives another and more considerable means of support from the patronage of visitors to the hot springs. Almost every Japanese is something of an artist, and ever since pottery and porcelain became essentials of the tea-clubs, it has been a favourite amusement with dilettanti to use their own brushes for the decoration of specimens manufactured to order. Day by day during the "season" three or four gentlemen may be seen seated in Kishi Ahō's picturesque cottage among the woods and cascades of Ikao, leisurely transferring their fancies to cups, bowls, and vases of Raku biscuit, which are presently glazed, and re-fired in a little kiln that stands in an adjoining building. The decoration is in black and brown sous couverte, the ware is of the ordinary Raku character, soft and brittle faience. The usual black Raku glaze is not, however, employed; salmon-colour with white clouding or frosting, yellowish white with green patches, and light brown being the staple glazes.

In the province of Tamba, which lies to the west of Yamashiro and is included in the urban district of Kyōtō, pottery is said to have been manufactured as