Arita Porcelain: At Home and Across the Sea

I arrived at the Kyushu Ceramic Museum in Saga to the sound of cicadas. In the courtyard, I was greeted by a white porcelain bird, standing tall against the blue summer sky.

The bird was startling in scale, close to that of an ostrich. It was a replica of the Haubenkasuar, or crested cassowary, modeled in 1731 by Johann Joachim Kändler, one of Meissen’s most important porcelain modelers. The fountain was presented to Arita in 1987 by its sister city, Meissen. At the bird’s feet was the manufactory’s unmistakable mark: two crossed swords.

To encounter Meissen here, in the heart of Arita, seemed unexpected. But as I made my way through the galleries, the distance between the two locations began to narrow.

For Everyday Life: Arita Ware in the Edo Period

Stepping inside the main exhibition room, I found four hundred years of Arita porcelain unfolding across seven small galleries.

Japanese porcelain production began in the Arita area in the early Edo period (1603–1867 CE). Drawing on techniques brought from the Korean Peninsula and the long-established porcelain traditions of China, Arita developed into a major center of porcelain production, supported by local deposits of porcelain stone and the protection and oversight of the Saga domain.

What caught my attention as I walked through the exhibition were the objects of everyday life. Knowing that pieces like these were used by ordinary townspeople, I was struck by the aesthetic sensibility they reveal and the richness of daily life in the Edo period.

​​Brushes, ink, inkstones, and paper—the four implements traditionally known as the Four Treasures of the Study—spoke to a culture in which writing had become part of life for a growing portion of the population. Even a brush could be shaped and decorated with care, turning a small practical object into an expression of its owner’s taste.

Nearby, tea utensils filled another case. My eye went first to a teapot with an unusual, undulating lid, its outline rising and falling like a wave.

The teapot was painted with pine and cranes. Its colors had a character quite different from those seen in much Arita ware today, the decoration standing clearly against the white porcelain.

A small matcha bowl combined the blue and white of sometsuke with an amber-colored iron glaze. The glaze was applied selectively rather than across the entire surface, bringing the blue decoration into sharper relief.

Then came the sake vessels. One white porcelain sake pot was embellished with chrysanthemums framed in panels, its softly curved form continuing all the way to the tip of the spout. Three flat sakazuki cups sat beside it. The choice of vessel could change with the season—whether the sake was served warm—and with whom it was shared. I was surprised by how even a single cup of sake could call for its own carefully chosen set of utensils.

Fine, raised dots cover the entire body, while its handle takes the form of two intertwining vines.

A shallow akae sake cup is painted with chrysanthemums and scrolling vines, with color extending to the reverse side.

Writing, drinking, taking pleasure in the small rituals of the day—these objects belonged to the fabric of daily life in Edo Japan. Long before I reached the porcelain made for distant European markets, these modest objects offered another picture of Arita: a place making things for the lives unfolding around it.

Across the Sea: Arita Porcelain in Europe

Another room drew me into a very different story: the Kanbara Collection.

The collection was assembled by Kanbara Hakaru (1896–1987), a businessman from Arita who researched the history of ceramics while working for Mitsui & Co. in his younger years. After the war, he traveled through Europe, seeking out Japanese porcelain that had left Japan centuries earlier. In 1976, he donated his collection to Arita Town, and when the Kyushu Ceramic Museum opened in 1980, it became part of the museum’s permanent display.

Here were pieces made in Arita some three hundred years ago, sent across the sea to Europe, and eventually brought home.

Large jars and coffee pots reflected the forms and customs of European life. Their scale, abundant decoration, and use of gold gave them a splendor quite different from that seen in Japan. Yet their surfaces remained filled with distinctly Japanese motifs: auspicious symbols, flowers and birds, and images of beautiful women.

After reaching Europe, some vases were fitted with metal mounts and transformed into candlesticks or chandeliers, taking on new forms and functions far from where they were made.

Arita porcelain was shipped from the port of Imari, and people elsewhere in Japan came to call the wares by the name of the port rather than their place of production.

Today, the porcelain that crossed the sea during the Edo period is known as ko-Imari, or Old Imari, carrying forward the name used for these wares at the time. It is distinct from the Imari ware produced in present-day Imari. The name “Arita ware,” emphasizing Arita itself as the place of production, became established later.

Made from the same materials and fired in the same kilns, these pieces took on different names as they moved across borders and through time. Perhaps more than anything else, this room tells the story of how objects can carry one place with them while acquiring new identities along the way.

Kakiemon and Meissen: A Journey in Both Directions

After making my way through the exhibition, I stepped back into the courtyard. The white porcelain cassowary was still there, just as I had found it when I arrived.

The Kakiemon style, in which red and green overglaze enamels were set against the open spaces of sometsuke blue-and-white decoration, captivated Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, in the early eighteenth century and had a profound influence on Meissen. Meissen craftsmen closely studied Kakiemon porcelain from Arita, reproducing its motifs and compositions in their own work. These interpretations would go on to spread across Europe.

Seen this way, the porcelain bird was more than simply a gift between sister cities. Centuries earlier, the Kakiemon style had traveled from Arita to Meissen, leaving its mark on European porcelain. Now, centuries later, a piece of Meissen porcelain had made the journey in the other direction, coming to rest in this courtyard. What had seemed an unexpected sight when I arrived now felt connected to a much longer history of exchange across the sea.

Objects made to enrich everyday life, and works of porcelain made to cross the sea—their paths could hardly have been more different. Yet both were born in Arita and passed through the hands of its craftspeople. One accompanied the daily lives of people in Edo Japan; the other crossed the sea to find a place in European palaces. Four hundred years later, both remain close to us in different forms, at our tables and in our homes.

When MUSUBI KILN sends a piece of Arita ware across the sea today, we become part of the next chapter of that story. The beauty Arita’s kilns have created for everyday life, and the beauty they have sent out into the world—both are traditions we hope to carry forward into the years ahead.

The cicadas had not fallen silent. The white porcelain bird still gazed down at the water.