Things Japanese. Nicholas Bornoff

       imari ware

      Strangely, with all the influence that China had had upon Japan, the Japanese adopted porcelain over a millennium after the Chinese had invented it. Japanese ceramics had long consisted almost entirely of stoneware. In the late 15th century, Chinese porcelain was being increasingly imported, fuelling the growth of the aristocratic craze for the tea ceremony. Tea ceremony or not, the vogue for Chinese porcelain spread over the next century. It was the thing to have; high quality items were being imported more cheaply and frequently from Korea, though it soon became evident that it was high time to make it in Japan.

      The shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi made his second attempt to invade Korea in 1592. The campaign was disastrous, but to his general Nabeshima Naohige (among others) feudal lord of the old province of Hizen (now Saga Prefecture, Western Kyushu) Hideyoshi had given a 'license to trade', not in ceramics, but in the Korean potters themselves. "If there are persons skilled in ceramics found whilst encamped in Korea," went the shogun's instructions, "bring them back to Japan."

      The Nabeshimas kept their potters in captivity, though what had initially been coercion became more a matter of keeping professional secrets from rivals. Perhaps as a reaction to the ostentatious aficionados of porcelain, tea masters meanwhile came to prize the rough-hewn quality of stoneware all the more. Korean potters began by bringing subtle improvements to the same, notably in Karatsu; there was no clay suitable for porcelain in Japan anyway.

      In 1616, the great Korean potter Li Sanpei discovered kaolin, the exceptionally light clay needed to provide porcelain with its whiteness and hardness, near the town of Arita. Working thenceforth from their 'secret kilns', the reclusive and exclusive Nabeshima potteries dominated the ceramics industry until the end of the feudal era.

      In 1675 the potters moved from Arita to Okawachiyama, on the inland side of the port of Imari. This is how this kind of porcelain got its name—but not among the Japanese, who still prefer to call it Arita-yaki.

      Early Imari was mainly blue and white, but, during the Kan'ei era (1624-43), the great ceramicist Sakaida Kakiemon introduced over-glaze enamelling. The concept was Ming dynasty Chinese, but the polychrome designs were inspired from Japanese textiles, lacquer-ware and screen paintings. With the collapse of the Ming dynasty in 1644, China's exports of blue and white porcelain virtually ceased. Meeting the booming European demand for it provided the Japanese with a bonanza. Imari ware, both the polychrome enamel and the blue, were brought to Europe exclusively by the Dutch—the only foreigners apart from the Chinese allowed to trade on Japanese territory after 1639. Blue and white Imari proved highly influential in Holland, particularly in Delft, as well as in England and Germany. By the mid 17th century, Arita kilns were also producing European-style dinner services, often embellished with family crests. Porcelain was no longer a rarity in Japan and even the common people used it for soba noodle cups.