page_title: Satsuma ware
section_title: 1867–1885
hierarchical_section_title: Satsuma ware / 1867–1885
caption_attribution_description: English: Exhibit in the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, 21 Edwards Street, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. This item is old enough so that it is in the public domain. The museum permitted photography without restriction.
context_page_description: Satsuma ware is a type of Japanese pottery originally from Satsuma Province, southern Kyūshū. Today, it can be divided into two distinct categories: the original plain dark clay early Satsuma made in Satsuma from around 1600, and the elaborately decorated export Satsuma ivory-bodied pieces which began to be produced in the nineteenth century in various Japanese cities. By adapting their gilded polychromatic enamel overglaze designs to appeal to the tastes of western consumers, manufacturers of the latter made Satsuma ware one of the most recognized and profitable export products of the Meiji period.
context_section_description: The first major presentation of Japanese arts and culture to the West was at Paris' Exposition Universelle in 1867, and Satsuma ware figured prominently among the items displayed. The region's governor, the daimyō, understood early the economic, prestige and political advantages of a trade relationship with the West. In order to maintain its connection with Satsuma, for example, Britain offered support to the Daimyō in the 1868 rebellion against the shogunate. The Paris Exposition showcased Satsuma's ceramics, lacquerware, wood, tea ceremony implements, bamboo wicker and textiles under Satsuma's regional banner—rather than Japan's—as a sign of the Daimyō's antipathy to the national shogunate.
  Following the popularity of Satsuma ware at the 1867 exhibition and its mention in Audsley and Bowes' Keramic Art of Japan in 1875, the two major workshops producing these pieces, those headed by Boku Seikan and Chin Jukan, were joined by a number of others across Japan. "Satsuma" ceased to be a geographical marker and began to convey an aesthetic. By 1873, etsuke (絵付け) workshops specializing in painting blank-glazed stoneware items from Satsuma had sprung up in Kobe and Yokohama. In places such as Kutani, Kyoto and Tokyo, workshops made their own blanks, eliminating any actual connection with Satsuma. From the early 1890s through the early 1920s there were more than twenty etsuke factories producing Satsuma ware, as well as a number of small, independent studios producing high-quality pieces.
  Eager to tap into the burgeoning foreign market, producers adapted the nishikide Satsuma model. The resulting export style demonstrated an aesthetic thought to reflect foreign tastes. Items were covered with the millefleur-like 'flower-packed' (花詰, hanazume) pattern or 'filled-in painting' (塗りつぶし, nuritsubushi) 
  to the point of horror vacui. 
  They were typically decorated with "'quaint' ... symbols such as pagodas, folding fans, or kimono-clad [females]". Pieces continued to feature floral and bird designs, but religious, mythological, landscape and genre scenes also increased. There was new interest in producing decorative pieces (okimono), such as figurines of beautiful women (bijin), animals, children and religious subjects. The palette darkened, and there was generous application of moriage (盛り上げ) raised gold.
caption: Porcelain bowl detail c. 1870
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