1890-1896
It is a low-fired pottery of high artistic value, with ancient Japanese painting techniques applied under the glaze originated by Gottfried Wagner in 1883. Wagner was devoted to glaze research at that time, and applied the vigorous brush strokes of Japanese painting to ceramics.
He used a chalky substance which had not been used in Japanese-style ceramics and porcelain before, and through trial and error with an underglaze technique of applying a glaze after painting, he did one experiment after another at such places as Tokyo Edogawa factories as well as at Kato Tomotaro’s kiln in Seto. As a result, he exhibited ‘Faience Ceramics’ at The Textiles, Ceramics and Lacquerware Fair in 1885, and in the following year in 1886, he reached completion of his ‘Azuma-ware’ for the seventh Neoclassical Art Exhibition, but there was already an existing work with that name so he later changed the name to ‘Asahi-ware’. Since then, that underglaze technique has been highly praised overseas, and has been spread by many potters, from Kato Tomotaro to Miyagawa Kozan, who mainly exported overseas.
