Japan and China Volume 8; Japan, Its History, Arts, and Literature (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 Excerpt: ...hospital utensils. These are now made in considerable quantities by the fourth representative, Aitaro. The story of the Irie family is similar. Its first potter, Irie Kuhei, came to Kyoto and opened a factory at Mi-ike in 1789, producing chiefly cups, bowls, etc., in decorated faience. In 1842 his son, of the same name, moved to Gojo, and showed so much skill that he was ordered to make fire-pots for use in the Imperial Palace at the Harvest Festival (1853). e then changed his name to Irie Sakon. His son, Dosen, abandoned art manufactures, and now produces porcelain utensils for use in laboratories, hospitals, and so forth. Entering the present century, the student finds one of the greatest names in Japan's keramic annals. Nishimura Zengoro was the eleventh descendant of a potter who worked at Nara, in the province of Yamato, about the year 1501. The family then occupied itself chiefly with the manufacture of earthenware idols, but towards the close of the century it became famous for the excellence of its fire-boxes (faro). These were an important article of Cha-no-Yu equipment, and their manufacture often occupied the attention of the most skilled keramists. Patronised by the renowned dilettanti Shuk5 and J o-o, the Nishimura family's furo came into fashion, and the production was continued successfully down to the time of the tenth generation, whose representative was Nishimuro Zengoro, known in art circles as Ryozen. It is of this man's son that special note must be taken. His name was the same as that of his father, --Zengoro, --but by keramists he was called Hozen. At first he was apparently content to follow the example of his ancestors, and to manufacture only fire-boxes. Even in this work his remarkable dexterity in combining pates of different colou...