Saida Isaburo 斎田 伊三郎 1796- 1868
Saida Isaburo (斎田 伊三郎) is the first son of a family of rich farmers. He is
born on April 10 1796 in the Nomi Prefecture in the village of Sano. He was
also called Okeya Isaburo (桶屋 伊三郎).
In 1811 when he was 16 years old, he entered Wakasugi kiln as student potter
and learned from Honda Teikichi.
In 1816 he is now 21 years old and he learned for 5 years to copy Nankin some-tsuke (南京染付) from Tofuya Ichibei (豆腐屋 市兵衛) from Yamashiro village. In 1818, he returned to Wakasugi kiln and learned "akae" and "sai iro" from Yujiro(勇二郎). But Teikichi died in 1819 and Yujiro also left Wakasugi kiln. In 1822 Isaburo went to Kyoto (京東) to learn "sai iro" from the famous potter Mizukoshi Yoemon (水越 与衛門) at Kiyomizu (清水).
When he was 33 years old he learned in Hizen (肥前) pottery technic and kiln construction from a kiln owner called Ueimon (宇右衛問). Then he continued its studies in Imari (伊万里), Owari (尾張), Mino (実濃), and Tamba (丹波). In 1830 he was invited by Ashimoto Yasubei from Wakasugi kiln and participated in the development of Wakasugi kiln with success, he was then very talented.
IIn 1835, Isaburo (伊三郎) is 40 years old, he built in the village of I (居村) a nishiki kiln (錦窯) which we call Sano kiln. He was the leader for painting, however as he had no specialist for pottery making, he was using the white pottery made in other kilns. Concerning the paint, he used many new designs such as black drafting with "Kinsai" and akae or overglaze enamels.
He was passionate by Kutani painting, and he started to teach in the neighborough or in the next villages. He was very good and his pupils made good progress. At that time he had many student such as Tomita Saburobei and Hashida Yosaburo from Sano and Matsuya Kikusaburo from Komatsu.
As a result of his efforts the number of painters increased gradually either by becoming specialist or some time only as part time painters who did it as a side job. In the surrounding of Sano village we had at that time a lot of painters.
In 1858 he found good clay in Sano and started to work with Nakagawa Gensaemon (中川 源左衛門) and began Suji kiln (素地 窯) which manufactured unpainted pottery. Sano village became one of the most prosper village.
Saida Isaburo (斎田 伊三郎) died in 1868, he was 72 years old.
Until 1898 the production of Sano kiln was very important, and was also very
successful in exporting many potteries.
Isaburo had a pseudonym, he was called Dokai (道開). Due to his big virtue a stale has been erected for him in the temple of Kyono (狭野).