Images

Our ewer has two main identical images that are separated by intersections, and decorated with flower and plant motifs. The two identical images on both sides show a rock and a blossoming tree surrounded by two figures: one holding a closed yellow umbrella and another one holding a green fan (a leaf).

Although the colorful decorations on the porcelain piece have colorful, and asymmetrical Japanese combinations, they resemble Chinese export porcelain pieces, suggesting strong Chinese influences. This can be best seen (ignoring the vast color differences) from the elegant, upwards growing trees in both the Kakiemon and Chinese porcelain pieces and scenes depicting two figures in similar places.

In Europe, the demand for Chinese porcelain was high, and it dominated the international market. But during the mid-17th century, the production of Chinese porcelain stagnated due to civil wars from dynastic change.

This prompted the Dutch, who traded with the Japanese, to fill the gap by encouraging the Japanese to produce more items based on Chinese models for the international market. Kakiemon export porcelain was in this case based on the so-called kraak (blue-and-white) porcelain from China. But the Japanese innovated it by copying the enamelling technique from the Chinese kraak and adding colorful ornamentations.

This created a new fashion that rapidly spread through Europe, making the Japanese porcelain one of the first Japanese art products to reach Europe in great quantities while being more expensive than any other type of Asian porcelain. Roughly 220,000 pieces of Kakiemon were transported to Holland from Japan in the last three decades of the 17th century, during which this particular Kakiemon ewer was also transported. It was thus technologically created by Koreans, inspired by Dutch, influenced by the Chinese while retaining its exclusive Japanese elements.Used sources: Jörg, C. J. A. Fine & curious: Japanese export porcelain in Dutch collections. Amsterdam: Hotei publishing, 2003. pp. 74; Hsieh, E. “Japanese or Chinese? Non-invasive analysis of East Asian blue-and-white porcelain.” Archeological and anthropological sciences 11, 10 (2019): 5483-5497. pp. 5485; Impey, O., C. J. A. Jörg and C. Q. Mason. Dragons, tigers and bamboo: Japanese porcelain and its impact in Europe. Toronto: Gardiner museum, 2009. pp. 125; Impey, O. Japanese export porcelain: Catalogue of the collection of the Ashmolean museum, Oxford. Amsterdam: Hotei publishing, 2002. pp. 14; Impey, O. The early porcelain kilns of Japan: Arita in the first half of the seventeenth century. Oxford: Clarendon press, 1996. pp. 25.