is a type of

Japanese pottery , is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, and blue-and-white ware. Japan has an exceptional ...

, specifically an unusually high-quality

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

Arita ware. It was produced in Lord Nabeshima of Saga Domain's

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

at Okawachi near Arita in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

, for the use and profit of the family. The name therefore derives from the family. The Okawachi kiln was already in use, and continued to make other wares at the same time. Production began around 1700, and continued until the late 19th century, with similar wares being produced elsewhere by descendants of the master lineage to the present day Unlike most Arita ware, the designs drew on Japanese rather than Chinese traditions, especially those of textile design, and are often marked by a free use of empty space. Much of the wares were dishes for food made in sets of five, with a high foot. These followed in shape the dishes in lacquered wood, which until then were the preferred dining dishes used by the aristocracy. The Nabeshima used them themselves and gave them to other feudal lords as prestige gifts. Very few were exported until the

Meiji period The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...

. A variety of designs are used, ranging from the abstract to the representational. Animal and plant designs are popular, and designs showing three patterned jars are a particular feature. The technique also differs from that of most Japanese porcelain, with the outlines of the pattern done in

underglaze Underglaze is a method of decorating pottery in which painted decoration is applied to the surface before it is covered with a transparent ceramic glaze and fired in a kiln. Because the glaze subsequently covers it, such decoration is completely ...

blue before the

overglaze Overglaze decoration, overglaze enamelling or on-glaze decoration is a method of decorating pottery, most often porcelain, where the coloured decoration is applied on top of the already fired and glazed surface, and then fixed in a second firing ...

"enamelled" final decoration.Ford & Impey, 110 One of the patterns used is '' Karako'' (唐子) with the depiction of Chinese children playing. File:Nabeshima Jar-form Dish, c. 1680-1720, Arita, Okawachi kilns, hard-paste porcelain with underglaze cobalt - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00494.JPG, Jar-form dish, hard-paste porcelain with underglaze cobalt, Okawachi kilns in Arita, c. 1680–1720 File:Nabeshima-Ware Bowl, 18th century, Japan, porcelainwith enamel - Art Institute of Chicago - DSC00233.JPG, 18th-century dish File:Floral Plate Nabeshima.JPG, Nabeshima ware plate with floral design in the

Kakiemon is a style of Japanese porcelain, with overglaze decoration called "enameled" ceramics. It was originally produced at the factories around Arita, in Japan's Hizen province (today, Saga Prefecture) from the Edo period's mid-17th century onwards ...

style, Arita, late 17th century, Edo period File:Dish with hollyhock design, Nabeshima ware, Edo period, 18th century, overglaze enamel - Tokyo National Museum - DSC06022.JPG, Dish with

hollyhock ''Alcea'' is a genus of over 80 species of flowering plants in the mallow family Malvaceae, commonly known as the hollyhocks. They are native to Asia and Europe. The single species of hollyhock from the Americas, the streambank wild hollyhock, ...

design and small

kintsugi , also known as , is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum; the method is similar to the technique... As a philosophy, it treats bre ...

repair on top, overglaze enamel, 18th century,

(

Tokyo National Museum The or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the four museums operated by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage ( :ja:国立文化財機構), is considered the oldest national museum in Japan, ...

)

Notes

References

*Ford, Barbara Brennan, and Oliver R. Impey, ''Japanese Art from the Gerry Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art'', 1989, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
fully online
*Smith, Lawrence, Harris, Victor and Clark, Timothy, ''Japanese Art: Masterpieces in the British Museum'', 1990, British Museum Publications, {{Authority control Culture in Saga Prefecture Japanese porcelain