Page 125 - Satsuma MARKS The Joy Of Beauty 1000 Pottery and Porcelain Marks

Satsuma, Jukan, sei, Chin Jukan XIV (b. 1927)

Satsuma, Jukan, Chin Jukan XV (b. 1957)

Chin Jukan XII (1835 - 1906) (potter)
Chin Jukan Workshop (established c. 1598

The fifteenth Chin Jukan is also a nationally and internationally recognized
craftsman. He graduated from Waseda University in 1983, and went on to study
ceramics in Italy and South Korea. The Chin Jukan kiln has been visited by members
of the Japanese Imperial Household and the President of South Korea; a proof of its
importance in the history of the craft and as a symbol of the relations between the
two cultures.In 1597, the 17th Lord of the Satsuma Clan, Yoshihiro SHIMAZU, took
up the war against Korea for the second time. A year later, approximately 80 Korean
potters were brought back alongside SHIMAZU, and half of them settled in
Shimabara in Kushikino area. Among them was Dang Kil, coming from the
distinguished Shim family of Kyongsangbukudo Cheong Song, that once the family
member wed to become the Empress Consort of Sejong of the Fourth Li Dynasty. In
1603, Shim Dang Kil relocated from Kushikino to the village of Naeshirogawa, and
went on to establish the Naeshirogawa Ware Kiln in 1605. 18 years later, by the
order of the Satsuma Clan, Shim Dang Kil was said to have found the Chine a (white)
clay with his colleague Park Pyung Eui, and went on to develop what we refer to as
Satsuma Ware today. For approximately 400 years, Shim family have passed on the
mastery through generations, literary from fathers to sons, whom all have lived
amidst the Satsuma legacy. As history progressed, the winds of change brought by
the Meiji Restoration blew coldly over the potters of Naishirogawa, but Shim Soo
Kwan the 12th, then serving the 28th Lord of Satsuma, Nariakira SHIMAZU, was
allowed to send a pair of large flower vases to World Exposition in Austria in 1873.
The artistry of Shim the 12th was immediately recognized by the international
audience and subsequently opened up trade paths for Satsuma Ware to Austria,
Russia, America, and other countries and made Satsuma Ware the pronoun of the
Japanese ceramics. In 1875 as the Satsuma Clan’s support system shunned, Shim
Soo Kwan the 12th took all the aspects (including financially) of the kiln to his own
and devoted himself to the restoration of Satsuma Ware by enforcing independent
management. Playing a leading role for other producers, while overcoming
adversary and weathering this period of confusion, he was regarded as the restorer
of modern Satsuma Ware. Couple generations down, Shim Soo Kwan the 14th is
known as a main character in Ryotaro SHIBA’s novel “The Heart Remembers Home.”