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.