JAPAN
Dainichi-yama, where earth of good quality was procurable. This event is referred approximately to the year 1660. Very soon afterwards the faience produced at the new factories became popular, and the cachet "Iwakura" (vide Marks and Seals) attained a considerable reputation. As for the ware, however, its only points of difference from the Awata-yaki were that the glaze was softer, more lustrous, and of warmer tone, the crackle finer, and the decoration generally chaster and less brilliant. At a later period—about 1760—a new source of confusion was created by the use of the Iwakura mark at Awata. This practice was commenced by Kichibei, son of a bric-à-brac dealer called Jōgi-ya. Having been sent by his father to study the potter's art at Awata, Kichibei desired to employ some cachet that would bring his productions into speedy note. He accordingly adopted the Iwakura mark, with the addition of the ideograph yama or san (mountain). Thus it is known that specimens marked "Iwakura-zan" were really produced at Awata, and that they cannot be older than 1760. Kichibei's descendants continued working at Awata and using the same cachet until 1882, when the family became extinct. As for the Iwakura factories, they had long been closed, and their owners had returned to the city, settling either at Kyō-mizu, at Awata, or at Gojō.
There are not wanting connoisseurs who with some show of reason place the faience of Iwakura and the finer specimens of the Awata-yaki in the same rank with the ware of Satsuma. But even while admitting that the technical character of the former is not inferior to that of the latter, the conviction is inevitable that the Kyōtō pottery, as a rule, lacks solid-
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