page_title: Japanese export porcelain
section_title: Distinguishing domestic and export wares
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese export porcelain / Distinguishing domestic and export wares
caption_attribution_description: English: Ritual pouring vessel (kendi) from Japan, Edo period, 17th century, porcelain with enamel, Honolulu Museum of Art accession 3569.1
context_page_description: Japanese export porcelain includes a wide range of porcelain that was made and decorated in Japan primarily for export to Europe and later to North America, with significant quantities going to south and southeastern Asian markets. Production for export to the West falls almost entirely into two periods, firstly between the 1650s and 1740s, and then the period from the 1850s onwards.
  The wares produced are a complex and varying mixture of styles, based on Chinese porcelain, the local Japanese pottery and porcelain, and European styles and tastes. Often the shapes were dictated by the export markets, but the decoration was predominantly East Asian in style, although quite often developed from Dutch imitations of Chinese pieces. In the first period the great majority of the wares were produced in the area of Arita, in the old Hizen Province and are covered by the terms Arita ware, Imari ware and Kakiemon, all of which have complications in their meanings in English.
  In the later period, Satsuma ware was produced almost entirely for export, and factories began to brand their wares, with Noritake and Nikko Ceramics being well-known in the West.
context_section_description: It is usually, but not always, possible for an expert to tell from the object itself whether it was made for the domestic market or export. Some shapes are certainly European, including shaving-bowls with a crescent-shaped cut-out for the neck, coffee pots and other shapes based on European silverware shapes, "apothecary bottles", bottles in imitation of European glass shapes, and others.  Some pieces were shipped to Europe as plain "blanks", and given overglaze decoration there, usually in Holland, or given metal mounts in Europe; these may even be dated, which is especially useful for historians.  Many export ewers were given holes at the top of the neck to facilitate the mounts, but were never mounted.
  Other pieces carry initials or inscriptions, especially the "VOC" (for Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) monogram of the Dutch East India Company.  Some pieces can be documented back to the period in old European collections, such as a Kakiemon elephant recorded at Burghley House in England in 1688, and still there.  Although this becomes ever less useful, early period pieces that have a provenance going back a century or more, especially from places in India, southeast Asia or the Middle East, are likely to have been exported to that area after production. Some shapes were especially made for non-European export markets; the Islamic world wanted large platters for rice-based dishes served communally, and the kendi (or "gargolet") is a distinctive southeast Asian type of drinking or pouring vessel with two openings, one at the top of the neck, and the other lower on the body, with a rounded protuberance.  Some pieces have old Middle Eastern metal mounts.
  The painted decoration of pieces also gives strong indications of the intended destination, either by copying European styles, or using a style that appealed to Japanese taste, but was assumed to not appeal to Europeans.  But interpretations of Chinese styles might be intended for either market, though generally the quality of painting is better on domestic wares.  In the later period, much production for export was poorly and over-elaborately made and painted.
caption: Kendi for southeast Asian markets, 17th century
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