Kutani Ware

Kutani ware, Japanese porcelain made in Kaga province (now in Ishikawa prefecture). The name “Old Kutani” refers to porcelain decorated with heavily applied overglaze enamels and produced in the Kaga mountain village of Kutani. The powerful Maeda family had established a kiln there by 1656. The clay bodies used were gray and coarse-grained. On most pieces—dishes and bowls were especially common—a white or blue-white matte glaze was decorated in dark, restrained colours, initially greens, yellows, and some reds, and later purples and dark blues. Some items had cobalt blue decoration under a white glaze. The most noted Old Kutani pieces are “Green Kutani,” in which most of the surface is covered in a green or blue-green glaze to which one or two colours have been added (or the glaze is applied evenly over a design executed in black). The bold designs of Kutani ware drew freely from Chinese ceramics, paintings, and textiles. They are renowned for their rich pictorial ornament executed in lively, intense lines.

Owing to local financial problems and difficulties in obtaining the necessary pigments, the Kutani kiln was abandoned some time in the Genroku period (1688–1704). Ceramics production in Kaga enjoyed a renaissance early in the 19th century, however, including the establishment of another kiln at Kutani in the 1820s. In addition to a revival of the styles of Old Kutani ware, there arose a style using gold on a coral-red ground, which was perfected during another spate of activity that began in the 1860s. Technical advances were made and Western-style pigments were adopted, and by the 1890s modern Kutani ware had become a major item among Japan’s exports.

The name “Kutani” is now loosely applied to a great variety of 19th-century Japanese ceramics, many of which have no connection with Ishikawa prefecture. To further confuse matters, some authorities now assert that most Old Kutani ware was actually made at Arita, in present-day Saga prefecture.