Ueba Esou

Ueba Esou has made and sold natural pigments for Japanese-style painting from the same corner of Kyoto's Shimogyo Ward since 1751. The shop opened during a period when the city supported a whole trade in nihonga materials — accounts describe roughly twenty pigment shops operating in the surrounding streets at the trade's peak.

The house specializes in two pigment families central to nihonga: iwa-enogu, ground mineral pigments (some made from lapis lazuli and other stones that command premium prices for their color), and gofun, the white pigment made by grinding calcined shell. Ownership has passed down through the same family for generations; the company's own account of itself describes an eleventh generation now running the business.

Of the pigment shops that once served Kyoto's painters, Ueba Esou describes itself as the last one still trading from its own historic Shimogyo Ward neighborhood — a narrower claim than being Kyoto's last natural-pigment shop overall, since at least one other genuine nihonga pigment specialist, Saiun-do, still operates elsewhere in the city (Nakagyo Ward). It has also extended its shell-grinding craft into a gofun-based nail polish line, "Gofun Nail," which won a Good Design Award in 2015 — a contemporary product built on the same material the shop has processed for over 270 years.