Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 6. Japanese porcelain (1600 - 1700)
Home > The Princessehof collection of Asian ceramics > Chinese and Japanese trade ceramics > 6. Japanese porcelain (1600 - 1700)
The first westerners in Japan were a crew of Portuguese, whose junk had accidentally been blown ashore in 1542. Regular contacts with the Portuguese at Macao gradually developed thereafter. They imported profitable Chinese goods into Japan, but also spread Christianity among the Japanese people. The nobility however was not prepared to convert to Christianity and in 1639 the shogun forcibly expelled the Portuguese from Japan. The Dutch arrived in Japan in 1600 and traded from their factory in Hirado. However, the shogun ordered increasingly stringent measures covering foreigners, sending the Dutch to the artificial island Deshima in 1641. As the only Europeans to have permission to trade with Japan, they were in an exceptional position. The only Asians in a similar situation were the Chinese.
The production of porcelain started in Japan in the early 17th century. A Korean potter, Ri Sampei is credited with teaching the Japanese potters to make porcelain. This early porcelain, called shoki-Imari, was manufactured on the southern island of Kyushu as of about 1620, starting in the stoneware kilns in the region of Karatsu and then mainly in the kilns around Arita.
Shoki-Imari consists of small dishes, bowls, and bottles, sparely decorated in underglaze blue or brown on white or a celadon glaze with birds in flight or on a branch, grasses, a few lines suggesting a landscape, the design often asymmetrically placed. These objects were used in the tea ceremony and served with the Japanese meal, traditionally requiring many small-sized items.
When the Chinese production of celadon in Longquan diminished in the middle of the 17th century, some Arita kilns started imitating this ware in order to satisfy the demand from the south-east Asian market. This Arita production consists mainly of large, thickly potted dishes with a pale green glaze. Japanese celadon dishes were fired on a narrow circular firing support, scars of which can be found in the unglazed circle painted brown on the base. The foot rings are glazed. The decoration is invariably carved under the glaze and includes flowers like the peony or the lotus, on its own or in a key-fret medallion.
The breakdown of the Ming dynasty and the devastating civil wars in China caused the export of Chinese porcelain to diminish in 1649 and finally come to an end in 1653. To be able to continue to supply the home country with porcelain the VOC turned to Japan. The Dutch had by then privately traded in Japanese goods, including porcelain since the 1650s. Both the VOC orders, officially from 1657, and the increasing demands from the domestic market forced the Arita kilns to make technical, structural and administrative adaptations for output in large quantities.
The Dutch initially requested porcelain in the styles they had shipped before: the Chinese kraak and Transitional styles. The Kraak style with its panelled borders is to be found on Japanese blue and white porcelain with open forms whereas closed forms like ewers, bottles and jars are mostly decorated in Transitional style. Central medallions on the dishes and saucers depict Chinese-inspired designs such as the flower vase, the cricket on a rock, flowers and rocks or river scenes. The Transitional style motifs include the tulip and continuous landscapes with trees and small figures. Sometimes these motifs fill panels on the border of dishes, Chinese examples with kraak panelling and Transitional motifs of the 1640s serving as examples. Also, these designs were sometimes copied from Dutch Delftware models that were painted in Chinese style and sent to Japan as models. In the last quarter of the 17th century the decoration became generally more Japanese with typical motifs as the banana tree, the karakusa, continuous border designs with scroll work or fans or an all-over decoration of a landscape.
Japanese porcelain with the exception of Kakiemon wares, not discussed here, has a somewhat greyish body and is covered with a glaze that shows small bubbles and a tinge of greenish blue in the corners of objects. As the body material is rather heavy, stoneware spurs were placed under the bases of dishes and large bowls to prevent sagging. The marks they left when removed after the firing are clearly visible The cobalt blue used for the decoration is often quite dark, sometimes grey or black-blue, especially when thickly applied. Pieces painted in underglaze blue only were fired once. Enamels required a second firing in a muffle kiln at a lower temperature. The colours consist of mineral oxides mixed with ground lead glaze. Iron oxides were used for red, copper for green, cobalt for blue, manganese for aubergine and antimony for yellow enamels. When gold or silver was used, a third firing at an even lower temperature was necessary.
Influenced by Chinese coloured wares imported into the country, the Japanese potters started enamelling on porcelain in the early 1640s, initially on shoki-Imari. The group called Early enamelled porcelain is decorated solely in enamels, without underglaze blue and was made in the period 1660-1680. These brightly coloured objects, often decorated in kraak style, were ordered by the VOC both for the inter Asiatic trade and the Dutch market.
