-
Jar and lid
Unknown - Enlarge image
Jar and lid
- Place of origin:
Arita, Japan (made)
- Date:
1690-1720 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Porcelain painted in underglaze blue, overglaze enamels, and gold
- Credit Line:
Salting Bequest
- Museum number:
C.1521&A-1910
- Gallery location:
World Ceramics, room 145, case EXP
Object Type
This large lidded jar is one of a set of five (C.1520&A to 1525&A-1910). It is a splendid example of the type of porcelain made in late 17th to early 18th-century Japan for export to Europe. Wares of this shape and size would not have been marketed in Japan. The areas of dark blue were achieved by painting with cobalt oxide under a clear glaze and firing to a high temperature in a reducing atmosphere. The gold, red and other enamel colours were applied and fused on in subsequent, low-temperature firings. The distinctive so-called Imari-style colour scheme was much copied by 18th-century European manufacturers.
Place
Imari was the port in western Japan through which this and other products of the nearby Arita kilns were shipped. Porcelains for export were sent to Dejima, a small island in Nagasaki harbour, for shipment abroad by Dutch and Chinese merchants.
Time
At the time this vase was made, merchants of the Dutch East India Company were the only Europeans permitted to conduct trade in Japan. This was due to the Japanese government's seclusion policy, which was enforced from 1639 until the mid-1850s. European hard-paste porcelain comparable in quality to Chinese and Japanese imports was first made at Meissen in Germany in the early years of the 18th century. Porcelain was made in Britain from the late 1740s onwards.
