page_title: Japanese export porcelain
section_title: Later period
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese export porcelain / Later period
caption_attribution_description: English: Japan, second half of 19th century Furnishings; Serviceware Porcelain with underglaze blue Gift of Allan and Maxine Kurtzman (M.2002.147.3a-b) Japanese Art
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: There was a considerable revival after the Ansei Treaties of the 1850s reopened general trade with Japan. In particular, the Japanese pavilion at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1867 had a great effect on the European public, featuring Satsuma ware (then still earthenware) and other ceramics rather more in Japanese native taste than the earlier export wares. This was the start of the Japonisme taste that had a strong influence for the rest of the century.  Japanese pottery and porcelain had continued to develop, or in many cases retain its traditional styles, during the period of minimal exports, and the earlier development of the wares that rapidly found new export markets is often unclear.
  Imari wares had continued to develop for the domestic market and once again became very popular in Europe, and now America.  The quality of 19th-century versions varies hugely, from the very crudely-painted to extremely fine pieces from the best factories.  Satsuma ware had begun as decorated earthenware, and was not significantly exported in the early period. But it was shown in Paris, and the local feudal lord had political connections in the West, and it became the most successful export ware, having mostly converted to a porcelain body. Late 19th-century wares were very heavily decorated, of variable quality, and much criticised on aesthetic grounds at the time and subsequently. Kutani ware also had a complicated history, and in this period was produced as both porcelain and earthenware for export.  Hirado ware, in a very fine white porcelain, had been a development of the gap between the export periods, and was much used for small figures and complicated forms, often using openwork, which the fine material was suited to.
  The Japanese porcelain-makers rather over-reached themselves, and in the 1880s there was something of an over-reaction, and Japanese porcelain acquired a reputation for poor quality, and prices and demand fell. Cheap wares could sell, but the better quality wares suffered, although small amounts of the highest quality wares found a market.  This situation largely continued until World War II. In the post-war period most Japanese exports were now in modern Western styles as interpreted by the larger Japanese companies.
caption: Elaborate "sencha ewer or export teapot", Hirado ware, second half 19th century
exif: {}