From the November 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
In 1656, the Dutch East India Company – since 1639 the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan – ordered from its contacts in Nagasaki a shipment of Japanese porcelain. Before 1644, Europe’s appetite for this ‘white gold’ had been fed by Chinese porcelain; but the chaos following the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644 had made supply chains unreliable. News had reached the company that Japanese porcelain was also highly regarded and had become attuned to European tastes. Thus began a busy trade. By the time exports from China began again in 1683, the lucrative market in a distinctive Japanese style of enamelled porcelain was so well established that the Chinese themselves began to imitate it.
Japanese porcelain-making was then a young art form. In the 1590s, Japanese feudal lords invading Korea had seized potters as part of their booty – Korean ceramics were held in high esteem and they wished to establish an industry at home. The Nabeshima lord, for instance, took Korean potters back to his province of Hizen on Kyūshū, the southernmost of Japan’s main islands, where they introduced a simple form of wheel-thrown stoneware, alongside the noborigama (climbing kiln) for more controllable firing. After a clay suitable for porcelain was discovered in the Arita district of Hizen in 1616, these Korean potters, led by Ri Sampei (also known by the Korean version of his name, Yi Sam-p’yong), began to develop a local style of porcelain known as Imari, after the port from which it was shipped.
Early Japanese porcelain is characterised by a coarse, grainy texture; the designs, painted in cobalt blue or iron oxide on a white ground and coated in a transparent glaze, are admired for their fluidity. Drips and fingermarks on the base, in contrast to the immaculate contemporary wares from Southern China, give them vitality. In the 1640s, influenced by Chinese polychrome wares, the Arita potters began making porcelain with enamelled decoration and before 1656 were adapting their forms and motifs to suit European traders sailing out of Nagasaki. Between 1660 and 1680, with a booming international market, they developed a palette of bright green, brick red, yellowish brown, light aubergine and overglaze blue, with minimal underglaze blue marking, and a range of motifs including trees and flowering plants, river scenes and landscapes, birds, occasionally animals or figures.
Myriad enterprises in Arita developed a variety of forms and objects to suit markets from the Philippines via the Middle East to Western Europe. The Dutch would send earthenware examples of what they wanted, inspired by Chinese porcelain and Delftware. Out of this early phase came distinct strands, including Ko-Kutani wares, with pieces that have a marked individuality. In the 1650s Kakiemon ware emerged, with refined and sophisticated use of brightly coloured asymmetrical decoration on a blank background. Kakiemon ware is attributed largely to a single family kiln, with production and quality reaching a peak between 1670 and 1710. Its popularity led other kilns to copy it, while Dutch enamellers decorated blanks in imitation, making attribution difficult. In the final quarter of the 17th century a different style emerged, with complex, brightly coloured decoration, using iron red and underglaze blue, drawing on Chinese motifs, with frequent lavish gilding. These Imari wares suited the taste of 17th-century Europe. After 1690, however, trade restrictions made Japanese examples prohibitively expensive for Europeans, so Western potteries produced their own versions – Meissen in Germany; Spode, Chelsea, Derby, Worcester and Minton in England.
Alongside all these, a line of Nabeshima wares made in a variety of kilns in 1675 in Okawachiyama were produced exclusively for the Nabeshima lord. This ware, with its elegant, spare design, employing a limited palette of cobalt blue, celadon and iron ore, was primarily reserved for gifts to the Tokugawa Shogun, Japan’s supreme leader during the Edo period (1603–1868). It reached its peak of excellence at the turn of the 18th century.
Although many of the original kilns continue to this day, collectors focus on early pieces from around 1620–1720. In the 1980s, the market reached a high as Japanese buyers, riding an economic boom, acquired outstanding examples from Western private collections. Malcolm Fairley, a leading London-based specialist in Japanese art, recalls a sale in 1989 at Sotheby’s in London at which many pieces fetched more than £100,000. But the market collapsed when the Japanese economic bubble burst in 1991. Values held for extremely rare early pieces in excellent condition with undisputed provenance, if at a lower level. In September 1999 at Christie’s New York, a large Arita ware porcelain jar painted with pheasants and flowering peony, dated 1660–80, achieved $112,500 against a wide $100,000–$150,000 estimate. In March 2000, at the same house, a Nabeshima-ware piece fetched $57,500 – well over the upper estimate; and in 2005 at Bonhams San Francisco, a colourful Edo-period Arita-ware Kakiemonstyle octagonal porcelain jar sold for $76,000. In 2015 a fine Nabeshima dish from the late 17th or early 18th century, sold for £56,250 (estimate £50,000–£70,000) at Christie’s London. Fairley notes that a large Kakiemon blue-and-white dish from the Avo Krikorian collection sold in 2007 at Christie’s Zurich for CHF22,800 (roughly £10,000): ‘We bought it at Sotheby’s in November 2018 for £16,000 plus premium (£20,000). A negligible increase for such a fine piece.’ Other items fetch a fraction of their former value, with fine 17th-century Japanese porcelain now available from the low thousands. Fairley suggests that Kakiemon figures of bijins – beauties – and other characters do have a market. In November 2021 a late 17th-century bijin achieved £35,280 – more than £15,000 over the upper estimate, an identical price to a late 17th-century KoKutani gourd-shaped sake flask in the same sale. In 2019, however, a pair of Kakiemon models of karako (Chinese boys) seated on Go boards from the late 17th century, with French 18th-century gilt-bronze mounts, was put up for auction at Sotheby’s London with an estimate of £250,000–£350,000, but did not sell.
Anthony Gray of London-based Guest and Gray is more positive, arguing that the market at a lower level is gaining new momentum as prices for Chinese porcelain spiral upwards. He notes that collectors pursue rarity and an interesting form or story, such as the blue-and-white Arita ware tea pot with a European seascape (c. 1720), which he has available for £22,000. Robert McPherson, a dealer newly returned to the UK, has a special admiration for the very early porcelain from 1620–50, when ‘they were really experimenting’. He has observed collector interest in this period growing over the last 10 years: ‘It is interesting to Westerners because the style is undiluted by Western taste.’ There is also a lively internal market in Japan for these works. Hans van Baarsen of Pater Gratia Oriental Art says that it is difficult to track the contemporary market because it happens behind the scenes, between dealers and passionate collectors. In his specialist area, 17th- and 18th-century blue-and-white Arita ware, he has no problem finding buyers for the rare, authentic pieces he pursues. But the scramble to copy Japanese examples in both China and Europe in the 18th century means that secure attribution is difficult: ‘The term Imari is very widespread but nobody knows what it means.’ Once attribution is secure however, ‘There is a market for early pieces, 1690–1700, with underglaze blue. It is very distinctive. And with Arita blueand-white ware from the 1650s until 1710.’ He notes a current focus on the rarest early examples of Kakiemon without underglaze blue: ‘I found an enamel dish with no underglaze. That becomes more than $10,000.’ There is also a market for unusual later pieces with Dutch armorials, for instance. He sells primarily within Europe and the UK, to private collectors and to institutions, but also further afield. As he puts it, ‘First people buy coloured Chinese porcelain, then they buy Chinese blue-and-white. Then they get to Japanese blue-and-white.’
From the November 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.