?-1694
male
rakuzan pottery
Founder of Izumo (Shimane Prefecture) Rakuzan ware. Also known simply as Gonbee. There were two brothers, Kurasaki Gorozaemon and Kanbei, among the Hagi potters, and it is assumed that Gonbee was the son of one of them. According to the “Kurasaki Family Work Record,” when Izumo domain lord Matsudaira Tsunachika opened an official kiln at Rakuzan in the eastern suburbs of Matsue in 1677, he made an appeal to the Hagi domain to invite a potter, and Gonbee was hired with 10 pieces of silver and four men’s allowance. Gombee worked at the Rakuzan kiln for 18 years, and like Hagi ware, his style was mainly copies of Korean tea bowls, and he used a loquat-colored straw ash glaze on a rough clay with the same black tinge as that used for Hagi ware.
