The subject of Japanese porcelain can only be briefly discussed here, on the one hand in its relation to the Chinese porcelain of which it may be considered an offshoot, and on the other, from the point of view of its influence on European factories. Though the origin of the art in Japan is obscure, it is certain that the Japanese learned the making of porcelain from their neighbours across the sea. Tradition asserts that one Gorodayiu Go Shonsui visited the Chinese factories in 1510 with this purpose, and on his return established a kiln of short-lived duration for the manufacture in his own country. It is not, however, until the beginning of the following century that sure ground is reached; about that time the necessary materials were discovered in the province of Hizen, in the extreme south-west of the island empire, by a Corean potter named Risanpei, and porcelain kilns were set up by him at Arita, which remains to the present day one of the chief Japanese centres of the industry.

At first only blue and white wares were made, but about 1645 the method of painting in enamel colours over the glaze was learned from a Chinaman by a potter of the Arita factory named Kakiyemon, and the style of decoration associated with him was inaugurated. This style was maintained by more than one generation of the Kakiyemon family, and characterises a quantity of the porcelain exported to Europe through the Dutch merchants established at Deshima, in the outskirts of Nagasaki. As will be seen later, it provided patterns for imitation in many of the earlier European porcelain works; most of the pieces so imitated, as, for instance, the prototype of the Chelsea jar figuring in Plate 23, bear designs of a formal character, showing that they probably do not belong to the earliest work of the Kakiyemon school. A typical example of this later manner is a large jar at South Kensington, painted with a group of figures and trees repeated in three panels, reserved on a close pattern of peony-flowers and foliage; a dish in the Brighton Museum, bearing on the back the name “Kaki” in seal characters, shows formal designs painted with extraordinary neatness with a full palette of enamel colours, betokening a still later stage in the development of the style. Charming as these more familiar designs are by reason of their clean drawing and the purity of their colours, they must be regarded as somewhat foreign to the Japanese genius, being the outcome of the effort to please the taste of Western buyers. The purely Japanese manner which may be attributed to the first Kakiyemon is illustrated by some small plates at Kensington from the Bowes Collection; the design is limited to slight floral sprays or a few detached blossoms in three colours only, red, green, and light blue, so as to allow the qualities of the soft white glaze to be fully appreciated.

The baneful influence of contact with the West, already noticed in dealing with Chinese porcelain, did not fail to make itself felt in the work of the Arita potters. From the last quarter of the seventeenth century may be dated the appearance of the ware generally considered in Europe as peculiarly characteristic of Japanese ceramics, but in reality of a type entirely alien from native ideas. Though made at Arita, it is usually called by the name of the neighbouring port of Imari, from which it was exported. The style is embodied in jars and dishes generally of large dimensions, decorated in underglaze blue of muddy tone, with dull red, green, purple and yellow enamels and gilding added at a subsequent firing over the glaze. Their effect is occasionally pleasing and handsome, but in general these objects have a dull and lifeless air that places them among the least interesting of all Oriental wares. This style was sometimes copied both at Meissen and at Chelsea during their earlier stages, and suggested some of the designs of the Worcester factory, but it was not till the first decades of the nineteenth century that it was extensively imitated, when the “Japan patterns” of Derby and the Staffordshire works enjoyed a great popularity; it may fairly be said that in the reduced scale necessitated by their application to table wares, and in the livelier colouring obtainable in the English soft porcelain, these patterns gain an attractiveness wanting in their Oriental forerunners.

Other kilns were founded in the neighbourhood of Arita under the protection of feudal lords, by whose patronage they were secured from the debasing effects of foreign trade. Porcelain began to be made about 1660 at the kilns of Okawaji, founded at an earlier date for making earthenware by a chief of the Nabeshima family. Here the methods of painting employed were those of the later Arita potters, but the colours are purer and the decoration, designed to please native tastes, is at once less florid and more spontaneous in character.

Fine porcelain was made in the second half of the eighteenth century at Mikawaji, also in the province of Hizen, under the munificent patronage of the feudal lord of Hirato. The wares are of two principal types. The first is painted in blue of a quiet grey tone with designs of exquisite delicacy, inspired by the Chinese “blue and white” of the time of Hsüan Tê; and it should be noted that this milder quality of blue was deliberately aimed at by the potters of the best Japanese schools, in preference to the deep sapphire blue attained by the Chinese at their highest period of development. The second class of Mikawaji ware is seen in the skilfully modelled figures of divinities, children, or mythical creatures such as the Corean lion; they are usually enlivened with coloured glazes of three harmonious tones, blue, russet-brown, and black.

Two other Japanese factories remain to be noticed in their relation to Chinese ceramics, in the provinces of Kaga and Kishiu respectively. The kilns at Kutani in Kaga were established in 1664 and made two distinct classes of ware. One of these is called “Ao Kutani,” or green Kutani, from the predominance of green in the colouring, and is characterised by the use of transparent green, yellow, manganese-violet, and blue enamels of great intensity, washed over strong floral or landscape designs drawn in heavy black outline. This type is perfectly exemplified by a fine dish in the series at South Kensington brought together by the Japanese Government in 1876. While it appears to be reminiscent in its methods of the “three colour” class of the Chinese, its artistic character is free from extraneous elements and entirely Japanese in genius. The other type, known par excellence as “Ko Kutani,” or old Kutani ware, includes a brilliant red among its colours, and is the ancestor of the red and gold Kaga porcelain of recent times.

The porcelain made in the Nishihama park, near Wakayama in the province of Kishiu, dates only from the earlier years of the nineteenth century, but is of interest as a revival of the early Ming ware with designs in coloured glazes separated by outlines moulded in slight relief; the enamels of the Kishiu kilns produce a wonderful richness of effect, notably where turquoise blue is used in combination with deep violet.