Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/434

 ferior specimens of yellow stone-ware, after Chinese models, have been produced at Agano.

The manufacture of this little-known faience was commenced early in the seventeenth century at Ueno, in the province of Buzen. The potters confined themselves to imitating an imported ware called Sunkoroku, which came from Aden. It was somewhat coarse red stone-ware or pottery, covered with semi-transparent, bluish white glaze, and decorated with archaic designs in black. The well-known dilettante, Ogori Sotan, extended his patronage to the workmen of Ueno, and in his time their cups, tea-jars, and water-vessels were in some demand, but the ware has little interest for Western collectors.

Ota is near Yokohama. A factory was established there in 1879 by Suzuki Yasubei, a merchant of Yokohama. He invited thither Miyagawa Kūzan, son of the Kyōtō potter Chōbei, who worked at Gion, producing a faience known as Makuzu-yaki. The idea of a factory near Yokohama is said to have been suggested by Umeda Yukihiro, a vassal of the Prince of Satsuma. At all events, its early productions were imitations of the celebrated Satsuma-yaki. Materials were procured from both Satsuma and Kyōtō, and no little pains were lavished on the manufacture. But though a good deal of this highly decorated ware was at first disposed of as genuine Satsuma-yaki, the enterprise had to be abandoned in the end. Subse-