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Bottle
Unknown - Enlarge image
Bottle
- 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.1518-1910
- Gallery location:
World Ceramics, room 145, case 10, shelf 1
Object Type
This bottle, of a type made solely for export, is one of a pair (with V&A C.1517-1910) previously in the collection of the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace. The small chrysanthemum-shaped stopper echoes the chrysanthemum design that appears on one of the four sides. The designs on the three other sides feature the peony, prunus and squirrel-and-vine. The blue, red and gold 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
From 1639 until the mid-1850s 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 in this period. 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.
