Japanese Pottery Markings

Video of Japanese Pottery Arts

2010-05-29T12:19:00.000-07:00

Some unique pictures on Japanese Pottery Markings. Some of it, I'm not sure to classified under which category (of course I don't mean the hot geisha girls ;) ), maybe experts out there can guide me? Thanks

STEPS OF MAKING POTTERY

2010-05-26T01:44:00.000-07:00

1. A potter first must find the proper clay and clean it to make it usable (if the artist buys clay at a store he can skip this whole step.)

2.The next step is to actually form the object.This can be done by throwing on a
potter's wheel.Throwing means shaping a big hunk of clay by spinning it on a potter's wheel. It can also be done with a mold.

3.After the object is shaped, it is ready for firing. How hot the fire is depends on if the object is going to be pottery(1,400 degrees F.) , porcelain (2,700 degrees F.) It is fired in a kiln.

4.There are many different kinds of glazes.Under glaze decoration (the design) is painted on after first firing.Then it is glazed before the second firing

What is pottery?

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Pottery is clay that is hardened by fire. Pottery comes from the greekwork, keramos which means, "potter's clay".

Pottery had been found in the remain of every ancient civilization. The oldest known piece of pottery found in China and dates back to 7900 BC. The first pot were large bowl, form by taking a lump of clay and making a bowl shape. Pottery just does not only include pots, but anything made from clay that can hold things such as jugs, vases and cups. Pottery was used to hold milk, grain, water, and seeds.

Later, people learned to mix different clays together to make stronger pottery and to put the pottery in a fire oven so the clay would harden faster. The potter's wheel was invented in China around 3,100 B.C. The wheel spins clay like a top. It allowed people to make pottery much more quickly and make shapes that were perfectly symmetrical - bowls that were really round, rather than lumpy or uneven.

Japanese Pottery Markings Dealer

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Souvenir Dealers:

TOKYO:
Shopping facilities: Mitsukoshi, Matsuya, Matsuzakaya; Takashimaya; Shirokiya and Arcade Hotel Imperial.
Porcelain: Fukagawa Porcelain Manufacturing Co., Quran & Co.

YOKOHAMA: Shopping: Nozawa-ya, Matsu-ya, Echizen-ya, Sagami-ya
Porcelain: Tashiro Shoten, Nikko Shoten; Nakanoya; Gloria Shokai, S. Oda, Miyakawa, R. InOne
Trivia: Owariya K. Takahashi, Kaneko, S. Shibata

KYOTO:
Shopping facilities: Marumono, Takashimaya, Daimaru
Porcelain: Kinkozan, Hiraoka, Kyoto porcelain

OSAKA:
Shopping facilities: Mitsukoshi, Daimaru, Hankyii; Nankai-Takashimaya, Matsuzakaya, Sogo, Takashimaya, Izutsu, Mikasaya.

KOBE:
Curiosities: T. Shibata, Harishin K. Nikko, K. Yoshida & Co.
Shopping facilities: Daimaru, Mitsukoshi, Sogo
Porcelain and lacquer: Chujyo Shoten; Harishin; Koshiishi Shoten, Miyazaki Shoten, K. Nikko; Ogurusu & Co., Suzuki & Co., Taniguchi & Co., William Rae, Genga Yamamoto, Yamato Bros. & Co.; K. Yoshida & co.

Type of Japanese Porcelain

2010-05-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

Type of Japanese Pottery Markings

Satsuma porcelain - produced mostly in the outskirts of the city of Kagoshima in Kyushu. Such goods are finished in gloss ivory with fine crackles. They have an image of a number of artisans sitting in traditional Japanese pottery and vases, coffee tables hand painted.

Arita procelains - produced in the Saga Prefecture of Kyushu.

Kutani porcelain - produced in Ishikawa Prefecture, in the district Hokuiku of Honshu, the main island of Japan. In all Kutani porcelains are characterized by elaborate gold decoration based thick, red, blue and some other colors.

Kyoto goods

Rakuyaki Kyoto, closely related to the tea ceremony since ancient times.
Awata porcelain consumption and
Kiyomizu goods are among the memories of Kyoto.
Seto consumption. "The province of Owari, with Nagoya as its commercial and industrial metropolis, is the biggest [Ceramic Japan] to the extent that the amount of products ... Owari produces many varieties of porcelain and stoneware that the Japanese speak familiarly porcelain and ceramics in general as "setomono" after the village of the same name in this province. "

Japanese Pottery Bizen (Okayama Preferecture) characterized by their peculiar humor figures of gods, birds and beasts

Banko goods (Mie Prefecture), which are mostly unglazed

Goods Awaji (Awaji Island) monochromatic yellow or bright green glaze

Another Japanese Pottery Markings, the Soma pottery (Fukushima Prefecture), in which a horse is usually a picture seen.

Porcelain Trademark

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Trademarks are usually read from top to bottom and from right to left. The signatures are usually followed by a suffix, for example Sei, saku tsukuru or meaningless "fact", or Ga, or Fude Dzu meaning "painted" or "made." Then there are the names of places, Satsuma, Kutani, Seto etc. To read the required credentials as a good Japanese / English dictionary as Nelson. A simple guide and easy to read and write Japanese is Ed Florence Sakade & al. J Bowes, Japanese brands and labels is very useful as Koop and Inada, Japanese names. It is a thankless task to go through lists of brands and as continuing in the hope of finding the exact match yours, however, a modest amount of study can make a big difference. Be careful, can become a Obession.

Porcelain History

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To immediately obtain a better understanding of the many names that occurs in Japanese pottery and porcelain, I think the map is available here which shows the most common areas of the oven and cities will be useful.

Regarding the dates, names the following Japanese historical period are most commonly met with:

Momoyama period (1573-1603)
Edo period (1603-1867) or less divided into early, middle or end of Edo. Sometimes it was Genroku (1688-1703) when popular culture is distinguished blooms.
Meiji (1868-1913)
Taisho (1913-1926)
Showa (1926-1988), where "early Showa" is often used to cover the Showa reign before 1945, and
Heisei (1988-present)

Ancient Porttery Industry

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The ancient Japanese pottery industry was in many ways smaller in scale compared with the Chinese. Marks was also applied for different reasons than in china. Personal signatures of the artists involved are very common. We also found a different attitude toward what the marks are placed on Japanese porcelain, and in particular, export porcelain from the 19th century and beyond. The full range of imperial reign marks so common in china, true or false, there is almost never. Brands are more commercially oriented, more numerous and can vary even within a set of parts. It may indicate the name of the factory, the potter, the decorator, the employer, the client, the exporter, importer, or both, or part of them or maybe just say "Made in Japan", "Japan" " Nippon "" Happiness "or" good luck "in any number of ways. The increase in confusion are the hundreds of porcelain decoration companies active in the early to mid 20th century at the same time putting many different brands in the same good, seemingly random, but probably for some reason. To give just one example, the company Noritake has been active for only about a hundred years, is believed to have used more than 400 different brands.

Kyushu, the center of Japanese porcelain

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Geographically, the manufacture of porcelain was more dispersed and Japan then China, where most of the porcelain was made in the city one of Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi Province. Similarly, however, the center of the Japanese porcelain industry could be said to have been located on the southern island of Kyushu. The largest city in Kyushu is Arita, while the larger nearby port was called Imari. These are the two biggest names in the history of Japanese export porcelain. When it comes to quality and artistic merit, the picture is more complicated infinetly.

Japanese Pottery Markings

2010-05-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

Japanese Pottery Markings

The Japanese have one of the longest continuous culture of ceramics in the world, with the first ceramics dating from around 10 000 BC. T

The tea ceremony of the 15th century

The popularity of the tea ceremony of the 15th century fostered an aesthetic appreciation of ceramics, especially imported Chinese goods, which became a value as works of art. Strong demand for ceramics resulted in an increase of creativity during the Momoyama period (1573-1603), with thousands of furnaces to develop their own distinct regional characteristics. High-fired earthenware were central to this tradition.

Ri Sampei, the "father" of Japanese porcelain

After the Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592 and 1598, a number of skilled Korean potters had learned from the Chinese as the production of fine china, were brought back to Japan. Some of these settled in Arita in northern Kyushu, where they discovered porcelain clay. One of the craftsmen of Korean porcelain Ri Sampei. It is considered the "father" of Japanese porcelain. The area became a major center of Japanese porcelain production and its products are also exported from the port of Imari.

Late Ming and Japanese Edo period (1603-1868)

Because of difficulties with trade in China in late Ming China, and Japan's economy improved during the Momoyama period (1573-1615), a strong demand for Japanese ceramics led to a surge in creativity. Thousands of furnaces developed its own regional style. High-fired earthenware were central to this tradition. This is also when we say that modern Japanese porcelain industry began.

During the 17th and early 18th century Japanese porcelain was very popular in Europe and successfully competed with the Chinese. Blue and white Arita porcelain was copied from the tin-glazed earthenware in many parts of Europe, of which faiance Dutch Delft is the most famous. During the 18th century Kakiemon enamel decoration was also widely copied in England. Although the production of Japanese porcelain developed their own styles, the influence of Chinese and Korean ceramic traditions often and can be easily found.

Even when Japan lived isolated from the rest of the world during the Edo period (1603-1868), significant amounts of Japanese porcelain was exported to Western countries, especially by the Company of the Netherlands East Indies.