Imari Porcelain: Arita, the Export Trade and How to Date a Piece
For most of the world, the word Imari means a rich porcelain painted in deep cobalt blue, iron red and gold. In Japan the same ware is usually called Arita, after the town in Saga where it was made. Imari was simply the nearby port from which it was shipped. Understanding that distinction is the first step towards understanding the ware.
The beginning in Arita
Porcelain needs a fine white clay that fires hard and translucent. Early in the seventeenth century, traditionally dated to around 1616, a Korean potter known in Japan as Ri Sampei found suitable porcelain stone at Izumiyama in Arita. Within a few decades dozens of kilns were climbing the hillsides, and Japan was making porcelain for the first time.
The earliest pieces, known as shoki-Imari, are painted in underglaze blue alone. Their drawing is free and slightly soft, the bodies are thick, and the bases often carry grains of kiln sand. Collectors in Japan value them highly for their directness.
Colour arrives
- Kakiemon. From the 1640s, enamel decoration was developed in Arita, an achievement associated with the Sakaida Kakiemon line. Kakiemon style places sparse, delicate designs in soft red, green, blue and yellow on a milky white body, leaving much of the surface empty.
- Imari style. Densely patterned pieces in underglaze blue with red enamel and gilding, sometimes called kinrande, became the export favourite. Panels, chrysanthemums, peonies and brocade patterns fill the whole surface.
- Nabeshima. At Ōkawachiyama, a kiln run for the Nabeshima lords made refined dishes for presentation, not for sale. Their footrings often carry a comb-tooth pattern, and their quality is the highest of all Arita wares.
Porcelain for Europe
When civil war in China disrupted the supply of Chinese porcelain in the mid-seventeenth century, the Dutch East India Company turned to Arita. From 1659 large orders were shipped through Nagasaki to Europe, where Imari and Kakiemon pieces filled the porcelain rooms of palaces. Meissen in Saxony and other European factories copied Kakiemon designs closely, and Chinese kilns in turn produced their own versions of Japanese Imari for the export market.
A second great export period came in the Meiji era, when firms such as Kōransha and Fukagawa sent large vases and chargers to the world exhibitions.
Marks and dating
Many Arita pieces carry Chinese reign marks, such as the six characters of the Ming Chenghua or Xuande emperors. On Japanese porcelain these are apocryphal: they signal admiration for Chinese models rather than a date. Other common marks include fuku, meaning good fortune, often in a square, and auspicious phrases such as Fuki Chōshun.
- Look at the base. Large Arita dishes were often fired on small clay spurs, which leave scar marks inside the footring. Chinese export porcelain rarely shows them.
- Study the blue. Early cobalt tends to be greyer and softer; later pieces are brighter and more even.
- Feel the weight and the rim. Seventeenth-century bodies are generally heavier, and the potting less regular.
- Check the gilding. Rubbed gold is normal on old pieces; bright, untouched gold on a supposedly early piece deserves a second look.
Condition
Hairline cracks, small rim frits and old repairs are common on porcelain that has been used for centuries. They reduce value but are not unusual. Shine a light through a dish and tap it gently: a clear ring suggests a sound body, a dull note may mean a hidden crack. Old repairs in gold lacquer are part of a piece's history; read our guide to kintsugi.