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it is time once again for me to ramble about porcelain history! since I had a couple days off this week I decided to check out an antiques store near me and had a wonderful time looking at all their beautiful dinnerware. I may make a separate post about that in the near future, but for now, I'd like to talk about this beautiful new plate I got:
This wonderful pattern is known as Imari! The term has been used for lots of different Japanese export porcelain, though the "proper" definition is specifically for patterns with underglaze blue, red, and gold, sometimes including black as well. Inspired by fabric patterns of the time, Imari commonly features designs contained within bold panels, contrasted with more delicate floral designs and birds.
This one's pretty long, so I'm putting the rest behind a cut:
The name itself comes from the Japanese port where porcelain wares were exported. Technically, original Imari pieces were produced in the town of Arita and could therefore be called Aritaware as well, but for whatever reason Aritaware was used (in European circles at least) to refer more to Japanese blue-and-whiteware. As is the case with European countries using terms from other cultures, they get mixed up and used interchangeably quite often. Because brevity escapes me at every turn, here's a little example of the differences between popular Japanese patterns of this time:
-Imari: underglaze blue, red, and gold, with lots of floral motifs and not much negative space.
(pictured above)
-Kakiemon: also called "enameled" ceramics, featuring bright reds, blues, and greens, and much more negative space. vessels were also more angular in shape.
(image found here)
-Kutani: there are lots of variations on this style, but they're generally separated into Ko-Kutani and Saiko-Kutani. Ko-Kutani features vibrant greens, blues, reds, yellows, and purples, and leave little to no negative space. Saiko-Kutani focuses more on gold or red patterns, but retains the vibrancy and detail of Ko-Kutani.
(image found here)
(image found here)
-Arita: A catch-all term for any porcelain produced within the town of Arita, which was vastly influential in the world of porcelain at the time. Commonly used to refer to Japanese blue-and-whiteware though.
(image found here)
Much like Chinoiserie, Imari has been replicated to varying degrees across the world by porcelain producers who wanted to cash in on the popularity. Royal Crown Derby's Imari patterns have sort of overtaken the original design in terms of recognition and popularity, though their designs (in my opinion, at least) differ quite a lot from the original source material - the blues are much darker and less saturated, the bold panels become larger and more geometric, and the gold details are much more prominent and take up most of the blue areas. Of course, I still love Royal Crown Derby's designs, but as far as my personal opinion goes, I think I prefer the original Imari designs overall.
And to end this with a silly completely unrelated fact, I've been trying to properly identify a single Imari teacup from an episode of Columbo for a few months now and have somehow not found it yet! Behold, my Porcelain White Whale:
so many companies have recreated this exact pattern with slight differences that I simply cannot discern which is correct. It haunts me in my sleep sometimes. I yearn to know who made this cup.
This wonderful pattern is known as Imari! The term has been used for lots of different Japanese export porcelain, though the "proper" definition is specifically for patterns with underglaze blue, red, and gold, sometimes including black as well. Inspired by fabric patterns of the time, Imari commonly features designs contained within bold panels, contrasted with more delicate floral designs and birds.
This one's pretty long, so I'm putting the rest behind a cut:
The name itself comes from the Japanese port where porcelain wares were exported. Technically, original Imari pieces were produced in the town of Arita and could therefore be called Aritaware as well, but for whatever reason Aritaware was used (in European circles at least) to refer more to Japanese blue-and-whiteware. As is the case with European countries using terms from other cultures, they get mixed up and used interchangeably quite often. Because brevity escapes me at every turn, here's a little example of the differences between popular Japanese patterns of this time:
-Imari: underglaze blue, red, and gold, with lots of floral motifs and not much negative space.
(pictured above)
-Kakiemon: also called "enameled" ceramics, featuring bright reds, blues, and greens, and much more negative space. vessels were also more angular in shape.
(image found here)
-Kutani: there are lots of variations on this style, but they're generally separated into Ko-Kutani and Saiko-Kutani. Ko-Kutani features vibrant greens, blues, reds, yellows, and purples, and leave little to no negative space. Saiko-Kutani focuses more on gold or red patterns, but retains the vibrancy and detail of Ko-Kutani.
(image found here)
(image found here)
-Arita: A catch-all term for any porcelain produced within the town of Arita, which was vastly influential in the world of porcelain at the time. Commonly used to refer to Japanese blue-and-whiteware though.
(image found here)
Much like Chinoiserie, Imari has been replicated to varying degrees across the world by porcelain producers who wanted to cash in on the popularity. Royal Crown Derby's Imari patterns have sort of overtaken the original design in terms of recognition and popularity, though their designs (in my opinion, at least) differ quite a lot from the original source material - the blues are much darker and less saturated, the bold panels become larger and more geometric, and the gold details are much more prominent and take up most of the blue areas. Of course, I still love Royal Crown Derby's designs, but as far as my personal opinion goes, I think I prefer the original Imari designs overall.
And to end this with a silly completely unrelated fact, I've been trying to properly identify a single Imari teacup from an episode of Columbo for a few months now and have somehow not found it yet! Behold, my Porcelain White Whale:
so many companies have recreated this exact pattern with slight differences that I simply cannot discern which is correct. It haunts me in my sleep sometimes. I yearn to know who made this cup.
