Polychrome sculpture in Sumida-gawa stoneware, also called Sumida-yaki, representing five monkeys huddled around a glazed peach wearing glazed clothes The figure of the monkey with longevity peaches is a popular image in China, however this subject was also widely used by the Japanese. According to the legend the monkey Sun, king of monkeys, upset that he was not invited to the banquet of the Queen Mother, entered the garden of the goddess Xiwangmu in the mountains of Kun Lun and ate all the heavenly peaches she grew there. He became immortal. Seal underneath of Kinoshita (木下). Sumida-yaki ceramics takes its name from the Sumida River (Sumida gawa), near which it was created by Inoue Ryosai I (1828-1899) in 1875. He and the wealthy merchant Shimada Sobei built a kiln in the Hashiba district of Asakusa, in present-day Tokyo. The production of the Inoue family spans three generations: Inoue Ryosai I (1828-?), Inoue Ryosai II (around 1860-?) and Inoue Ryosai III (1880-1971). Alongside them, two other ceramists are also famous: Ishiguro Koko and Hara Yashiyama. The ceramics are characterized by stoneware of rather heavy aspect, a very shiny glaze and most of the time, applied decorations in relief. It is decorated using the taka-uki-bori ("high relief carving") technique which consists of gluing shapes onto the porcelain. The glaze is then poured over the top, which gives the ceramics great vitality and freedom. It was mainly exported to the West from the end of the 19th century to the 1920s from the port of Yokohama; and was mainly distributed in the United States through the A. A. Vantine's & Co. store, located on 5th Avenue in New-York and specialized in oriental and Far Eastern objects. Made by Kitanoshita Japan – Meiji era (1868-1912) or Taisho era (1912-1926), early 20th