No kiln had been operated in the district of Daishoji-han since the closure of the
ko-Kutani kiln 100 years ago.
In 1820, Honda Seibei, the adopted son of Honda Teikichi who had started Kasugayama and
Wakasugi kilns and who died in 1819, decided with 2 other students of his late father,
Gensaeimon and Yoshibei to investigate how to restart a kiln in Kutani area.
In 1823, Toyota Denuemon the 4th also called Sekio, heard about this and decided to invest
in the pottery business and tried to restore the old Kutani. Denuemon was a rich merchant
from Daishoji and he was known under his business name as Yoshidaya. However Sekio was
already quite old born in 1751, he was 71 years old when he decided to start this venture.
Willing to revive old Kutani he decided to built his kiln on the same place than the old
kiln. But Kutani village is in the mountain, it is a very remote place, even today and the
living conditions are very severe, in winter there is a lot of snow, and it is difficult
to commute to Daishoji. In fact, it was not necessary to stay in Kutani to revive the old-
Kutani. But unfortunately Yoshidaya found out this too late, and the next year, in 1825,
he decided to leave the place and move to Etchutani in Yamashiro. It seems that the first
kiln was used only one or twice.
However in order to move the kiln Yoshidaya borrowed money from the Yamashiro City Chamber
of Commerce and from the Daishoji Han. At that time 20 persons were employed including of
course famous painters such as Honda Teikichi or Aoya Genuemon.
The construction started in Yamashiro on September 1825. The kiln was fired for the first
time in August 1826.
But the expenses to run the kiln were very high and Denuemon had difficulties to reimburse
the loan. He then tried to make cheap pottery and to increase his business, but the kiln
did not make enough money. He tried also to make mass production of overglaze enamel
pottery, but it takes a long time to make this type of pottery and material is rather
expensive, therefore he could not produce wares at a reasonable price.
In February 1827 Denuemon the 5th, his son died, he was 50 years old. The same year in
June, his father Sekio also died. The family had almost disappeared at the same time.
Denuemon the 6th, who was also called Senzo, was only 23 years old when his father died.
But the business of Yoshidaya was in bad financial situation, and quickly started to
decline. Senzo was young and did not know how to manage, in 1831 he stopped making
pottery.
In march 1832 Senzo 6th also died, he was 28 years old and his younger brother, Denuemon
the 7th, succeeded him in Yoshidaya. But the financial situation of the company was
already very bad, and in 1833 he sold the house and the sake business and moved to a
smaller place.
Yoshidaya has really made very beautiful pottery but unfortunately the production stopped
quickly. However, even so it did not last very long, Denuemon intention to revive the old
Kutani has been successfully completed and is today among the most famous and valuable
Kutani pottery.
Regarding colors, Yoshidaya had the same problem of firing temperature than ko- Kutani
kilns, therefore the color of the unpainted pottery is not so white and very similar to
ko-Kutani.
As a result and also may be because Yoshidaya wanted to restore the old style, Yoshidaya
pottery look like ko-Kutani or Aode style, however, there are some differences. Yoshidaya
used only 4 colors, yellow, green, dark blue and purple and never used red color.
Furthermore the thickness of the line of the drawings in black Gosu are thinner than old
Kutani. In fact it is more detailed.
Generally we can say also that Yoshidaya painted completely the surface of the plate, but
this occurred also quite often with ko-Kutani.
Yoshidaya ceramic are signed by a painted fuku in a double squared block.
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