It is almost certain that the first porcelain in Japan was created in Arita, Hizen (Saga Prefecture), in the early Edo period (1615-1243), and that red enameling was also successful in Arita around the Shoho and Keian periods (1644-52). At the same time, the Daishoji clan of Kaga (Ishikawa Prefecture) also became interested in firing ceramics, and it is said that they succeeded in firing porcelain and red enamel ware in Kutani Village, Enuma County (Yamanaka-cho, Kutani-machi) during the Meireki period (1655-161). Two continuous climbing kilns in the style of the early Edo period were confirmed. Relatively large quantities of white porcelain platters and bowls as well as other ceramics such as tea bowls, celadon, and rust glaze were excavated from the Monohara area. Among these artifacts is a small dish with the year Meireki Nisai (1656), which is accurately described in “Jyushushu Kaetsu-no Oji Suidai” written in 1736: “This mountainous area is called Kutani, where Jisei ordered the Goto clan to bake earthenware during the Meireki era, and other pottery, like Nanjing ware, was prohibited during this period and has since been discontinued. It was forbidden in the middle ages, and has since ceased to exist. In Japan, there has been a group of color paintings called Ko-kutani and a group of rusty-glaze dyed ware called Ai-kutani and Suisakate-ko-kutani, but recent surveys of Arita kiln sites have proven that the majority of Ai-kutani and Suisakate-ko-kutani were not made in Kaga, but in early Arita. Already in the 1940s, Kitahara Daisuke, an inspector at the Tokyo National Museum at the time, had asserted that the color paintings known as kokutani were also Hizen pieces, but this theory had been dismissed because it had not yet been confirmed at that time. However, in 1962 (Showa 37), a large number of large dishes from the Yamabeden kiln in Arita were discovered, including a Hotei large dish with an arabesque design in overglaze blue on the reverse side, the same as that on the reverse side of an overglaze blue Old Kutani “large dish with quails,” a Hotei large dish with a spear plum branch in overglaze blue and flowers in red left over afterward, and a large dish with a double-ring in overglaze blue. The discovery of these large dishes, including a large number of large plates with colored overglaze enamels, confirms the correctness of Kitahara Daisuke’s opinion. The fact that no large dishes with this type of underglaze blue were found among the excavated Kutani artifacts, that no fragments of small or medium-sized dishes with underglaze blue inscriptions such as Kakki or Taiming, which are characteristic of Kutani small and medium-sized dishes, were excavated, and that small dishes and tea bowls with unexpected underglaze blue inscriptions such as <AOTX were excavated, all of which are characteristic of Kutani small dishes and medium-sized dishes, confirm that the Kutani artifacts are of the same type as those excavated in this study. The fact that only two or three sherds of large bagged porcelain were found in Ko-Kutani, combined with the extremely low fire temperature of the sherds excavated from this kiln (measured at Nagoya University), and the fact that nothing was fired above 1,200 degrees Celsius (measured at Nagoya University), makes the connection between the Kaga fired porcelain and the color painting group now known as Ko-Kutani extremely tenuous. The connection between porcelain fired in Kaga and the group of overglaze enamels now known as Ko-Kutani is extremely weak. In October 1972, the Yamabeda Kiln in Arita was fully excavated, and it is expected that even stronger evidence for the Ko-Kutani Arita theory will be discovered.
