Hirado porcelain of Japan

Magazine Antiques, March, 2001 by Robert T. Singer

From a domestic porcelain patronized by a lordly family, Hirado ware evolved into a Japanese export ware widely known in the West. Only recently has this ware, made in the Mikawachi kilns since about 1650, begun to attract sufficient scholarly attention to permit a comprehensive picture to be formed of its rich and varied history. This article is illustrated with examples from the Kurtzman Family Collection, a promised gift of 250 pieces to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art by Allan and Maxine Kurtzman. [1]

In Japanese culture, ceramics are regarded with an attitude bordering on reverence, and Japan has one of the longest and most diverse ceramic traditions in the world, particularly of high-fired stoneware, both glazed and unglazed. Local wares are heavily promoted as well as protected by provincial governments, and a number of Living National Treasures are potters. Practitioners of ikebana (flower arranging) and chanoyu (tea ceremony) have for centuries created an enormous demand and appreciation for ceramics.

Porcelain, however, was not produced in Japan until the seventeenth century--an extremely late start, especially compared to the porcelain traditions of China and Korea. A reason for the delay was that an essential ingredient, kaolin clay, was only discovered in Japan in the early 1600s, and then by Korean, not Japanese potters. Japan had been importing porcelain from China and Korea for centuries; in the case of China, the imports began at least as early as the tenth century.

In 1592 and 1597 the Japanese shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536-1598) embarked on disastrous invasions of Korea. One result was that a number of Korean potters were brought back to Japan, most of whom settled in northern Kyushu. The discovery of kaolin clay is traditionally attributed to Ri Sampei (d. 1655), a Korean potter in the employ of the daimyo (feudal lord) of Hizen province (now Saga prefecture) who controlled the village of Arita. He is said to have found a substantial quantity of the material in the Izumiyama section of Arita. In any event, the archaeological evidence does indicate that by 1610 protoporcelaneous wares were being made at Arita. Soon after 1610 kilns in Arita, including the Kamishirakawa (today one of the sites included in the Tegundami group) began to specialize exclusively in porcelain production.

These Arita ceramics (also known as Imari ware after the port from which they were shipped) developed rapidly, especially between 1639 and 1683. The European demand for Asian porcelain was heavy during the seventeenth century and the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) controlled the trade. When the kilns at Jingdezhen in China, Arita's biggest rival, were destroyed in the warfare at the end of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Arita became the primary source of porcelain production.

The first products made for export in Arita were blue-and-white Koimari or Old Imari-style wares derived from Chinese and Korean prototypes, which were the wares of choice in Europe at the time. After the Jingdezhen kilns were reconstructed toward the end of the seventeenth century, Arita's primary export to Europe was an overglaze enameled ceramic known as Katiemon-style ware enameled in the akae-machi decorating workshops. This and Koimari ware comprised the vast majority of the porcelain exported from Arita. The most distinctive of the porcelains produced for domestic use were the overglaze enameled Kokutani (Old Kutani) and Shokiimari (early Imari) style wares made in the Arita kilns, and Nabeshima ware made under the direct control of the Nabeshima daimyo mainly for the family's own use or to give as presents. All of these ceramic types reached their apogee from the mid-seventeenth to the early eighteenth century Hirado porcelain, by contrast, reached its peak from the eighteenth through the nineteenth century.

Hirado, an island, had been a flourishing port since at the least the eighth century and by the thirteenth century it had become a provincial district under the rule of the Matsura (also Matsuura) family, succeeding generations of whom were the daimyo of the region. While we associate the name Hirado with a particular kind of nineteenth-century ware, ceramics had long been produced there. After the arrival of Korean potters, the daimyo Matsura Shigenobu (1549-1614) established a village for them. They produced work in the Karatsu style that had its roots in Korea. This stoneware is characterized by freely brushed natural motifs in underglaze iron pigment.

In the mid-1630s, Imamura Sannojo (1610-1694), [3] a potter of Korean descent in the employ of the Matsum daimyo, found kaolin in the village of Mikawachi. As a result, the Mikawachi kilns became officially sanctioned by the Matsura daimyo, who supported them through patronage and subsidies. The patronage of a daimyo allowed the potteries to aim for the highest quality without regard to cost. It also provided special privileges that elevated the status of the potters and gave them the support to create superior work. They were allowed to take family names (a rare honor in the Edo period [1615-1868]), exempted from certain taxes and administrative duties, given fixed salaries, and provided with clay and wood to fuel their kilns.