JAPAN
Some investigators claim that the production of this early-period enamelled faience was confined to the workshops at Tatsumonji; others that it extended also to the factory of Tadeno. The point is unimportant. It is sufficient to note that from 1675 to the latter part of the eighteenth century ware of this description was manufactured in very small quantities for special purposes.
The factory of Tadeno, mentioned here, was established during the Kuan-ei era (1625–1643), in the Kagoshima district of Sasshiu, by special order of the chief of the fief. Its productions were always of a very high order, and one of its artists, Kōnō Senemon, who flourished from the Meiwa era (1764–1772), acquired great renown. Senemon's skill lay chiefly in the manufacture of the wares known as Chōsa-yaki; that is to say, the flambé, tea-coloured, black and brown glazes of Hōchiu and his comrades.
It has been explained that the Yamamoto and Kawara families united to establish the Tatsumonji factory about 1650. The latter family was then represented by Kawara Tobei, who left three sons, of whom the eldest was Gensuke and the youngest Juzaemon. This Juzaemon founded an independent branch of the family, and was succeeded by a son, also called Juzaemon, who took the artist name Hōkō. Hōkō was a man of great enterprise and ambition. At the age of twenty-three he obtained his father's permission to repair to the Tadeno factory, where Kōnō Senemon was then at the zenith of his fame. After studying for twelve years under Kōnō's direction, Hōkō returned to Tatsumonji, and succeeded in reproducing the eighteen varieties of faience for which his ancestor Hōchiu had been famous. Not content
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