Kutani

Kutani, province of Kanga (Kaga), north-west Nipon, Japan · Porcelain · also recorded as Kutani-Yaki, Kanga, Kaga

• East Asian character
• Japan
• Porcelain

Marks

Plate I🔗

What the source records

• The ware is a porcelain of close compact fracture and very durable, with enamel colours fixed at a great heat; the glaze is seldom crackled and the reds as well as all other colours are firmly burnt in.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• Chaffers calls it of a very superior description to the fayence of Satsuma, and altogether distinct from it in both body and decoration.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• It is richly ornamented on a border or ground of brick red and gold, with irregular compartments of figures and flowers.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• The painting is infinitely more minute and laboured than Satsuma but perhaps not so artistic — which Chaffers attributes to porcelain requiring a more ardent firing, leaving the artist less freedom of touch than fayence allows.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• The manufactories are in a district called Kutani, or the Seven Valleys; the seven mountains are clearly defined in an old sixteenth-century map copied in Kaempfer's work.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• The ware takes its name from Kutani-mura, where the clay was found — a place whose climate made it unsuitable for a factory.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• Its origin dates from about the end of the sixteenth century, and it is said to have been founded by a subject of the Prince of Daigogi named Tamura-Gon-zayemon, who learned porcelain-making at Hizen.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• The early wares were a kind of Sometsuke, blue painted heightened with gold; deep green, light purple and yellow came into use afterwards.Chaffers 1891 · p.396
• In 1650 Godo Saijoro, who invaded Corea, brought over a number of porcelain-makers with their families, who settled first at Kagoshima, then at Chiusa in Osumi where Ko-Chiusa-yaki was made, and eventually at Nawashirogawa — where they succeeded in making the Satsuma ware.Chaffers 1891 · p.396

Why this differs from other listings

Kutani and Satsuma are constantly confused and Chaffers gives a physical test that separates them: Kutani is porcelain with a compact fracture and a glaze that is seldom crackled, Satsuma is a soft porous fayence covered in minute cracks. He also explains WHY the painting differs — porcelain fires hotter, so the artist has less freedom of touch than on fayence. And the two wares share an origin: the same Corean potters brought over in 1650 ended at Nawashirogawa making Satsuma.

The source page