Modern Japanese Pottery and Porcelain Marks (窯印)

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Kayson's Import Corp.

Kayson's Fine China Japan, Golden Rhapsody, c. 1961

Thursday, January 11, 2018

ONTA YAKI-(小鹿田焼) Ceramics of Oita Prefecture

Nestled in the mountains near Hita city is a little pottery hamlet called Onta Sarayama. This is where Onta Yaki is made. Onta potters learned the skills from Koishiwara potters on the other side of the mountain from what is now Fukuoka Prefecture. It began as a single kiln in the middle of the Edo period. It was relatively unknown until the 1920's when Yanagi Soetsu visited at the beginning of the Mingei movement. It is now one of the great places to see Japanese folk pottery.

There are ten families that work the kilns there. The main family names in Onta are Sakamoto, Kuroki and Yanase. All the work is done without modern machinery. Each father hands down his skills to his son. Each kiln is allowed only two wheels. This enables future generations to have enough clay to continue on making Onta pottery. I enjoyed my visit to Onta Sarayama, enjoying the simple, natural ways that still remain.

Onta potters mark their work with 小鹿田 (Onta).

Helpful answers to questions. It is in Japanese but you can get a general idea using Google translate.

https://story.nakagawa-masashichi.jp/craft_post/116763

List of Onta potters

https://edit.roaster.co.jp/edit/10688/

Map of the Onta Kilns

I believe this was made by Kuroki Tomio, the style and Onta mark match

Sakamoto Yoshitaka Gama

Here is another that looks like it may be from one of the Sakamoto kilns.

I think this was made by Sakamoto Shigeki

I think this was probably made by Sakamoto Shigeki considering age, style and Onta mark used
b. 1927 He retired in 1910. He was the last of the modern folk potters. He met Bernard Leach and Soetsu Yanagi back in the 1960’s which brought Onta into the spotlight as “Mingei” or folk pottery. He used a Onta mark, top to bottom おんた mark inside an oval.

This is a large plate! No marks. The Yubi gaki/finger wipe and uchihakeme/brush techniques were used here.

No maker marks

After some research I believe this is probably the work of Sakamoto Shigeki. The hiragana mark, design and foot are very reminiscent to his works. If indeed this is his work, he was the Onta potter who hosted the visit of Bernard Leach and Yanagi Soetsu which rocketed Onta into the exciting world of Mingei!