Description: This is the first book in a European language to document the porcelain made in Japan in the first half of the seventeenth century, from the beginnings of the industry there until the time an export trade to Europe and the Near East developed. This porcelain was made for a domestic market and so is little known in the West. The author also presents the most comprehensive reconstruction made so far of the working practices of Japanese potters in the seventeenth century; assesses the individual kilns of Arita, where the porcelain was made; and looks at modern workshop methods in order to throw light on possible conditions in the seventeenth-century. The book includes a large number of colour plates of fine examples of the porcelain, many photographed for the first time, as well as kiln-damaged pieces retrieved from kiln sites. These show which kilns were working, when they were in production, and which type of porcelain within the genre they produced. The evidence of kiln-sherds also demonstrates that the problematic porcelain of Old Kutani is nearly all of Arita manufacture.

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