Page 334 - JAPAN THE SHAPING OFDAIMYO CULTURE 1185-1868

258 Set of five dishes
Nabeshima ware
diam. 20.0(77/8)
Edo period,
late i7th—early i8th century
Tokyo National Museum

259 Dish
Nabeshima ware
diam. 29.6(115/8)
Edo period,
late i7th—early i8th century
Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo

From around 1675, the official Nabeshima
clan kiln of Okawachi in the Arita area of
Hizen Province (in present-day Saga Pre-
fecture) produced Japanese porcelains of
the highest technical quality, with refined,
elegant designs. Although angular and un-
usually shaped objects are not unknown,
the Nabeshima potters concentrated on a
small repertoire of uniformly shaped table-
wares, primarily round high-footed dishes,
which they decorated with a palette lim-
ited to red, green, and yellow overglaze
enamels, underglaze blue, and occasion-
ally iron-brown glaze and celadon green.
Examinations of the Okawachi site have
revealed an enormous noborigama (climb-
ing kiln), measuring 137 meters in length
and consisting of at least twenty-seven
chambers; it is thought that only three
central chambers, affording optimal firing
conditions, were used for the official por-
celains, and the remaining chambers for
utilitarian wares.
For most of its long history the kiln
was administered with the close control of
the Nabeshima daimyo. The examples of
Nabeshima ware included in this exhibi-
tion are thought to date from the peak
production period of the Okawachi kiln,
from the end of the seventeenth century
Ninsei's biography must be pieced to- the year Sowa died, the potter had as- through the middle of the eighteenth cen-
gether from inscriptions on his works, con- sumed the name Harima, as inscribed on tury, when the Nabeshima clan's participa-
temporary temple records, diaries, and an excavated sherd, and by the following tion in administration of the kiln was at its
accounts by the potter Ogata Kenzan year, the name Ninsei. The origin of the height. A directive issued in 1693 by the
(1663-1743). At the beginning of Tdkd Japanese characters that make up Ninsei's Nabeshima daimyo Mitsushige (1632-1700)
hitsuyd, Kenzan's treatise on ceramic name is explained by Kenzan: the first shows concern with the quality of the
techniques, Ninsei's name is given as character nin was borrowed from Ninnaji, wares and makes detailed comments re-
Nonomura Seiemon. The family name and the second character sei from his com- garding the affairs of the kiln. He casti-
Nonomura refers to an area in the Prov- mon name. Documentary evidence sug- gates the kiln administrator about a recent
ince of Tamba, presently in Kyoto Prefec- gests that Ninsei's son, though not blessed slippage in the quality of the official wares,
ture, where large tea storage jars were with his father's artistic acumen, probably complains about the repetition of designs,
made in the early Edo period. A 1649 succeeded as master of the Omuro kiln and demands that new, fashionable ones
source calls him the "potter Seiemon," during the early part of the Enpó era be found. To prevent the marketing of
and a record in the Ninnaji archives from (1673-1681). AMW copies of official wares by other kilns, he
the following year informs us that Ninsei prohibits outside potters from having ac-
had been a Tamba potter. He apprenticed cess to Okawachi, and orders imperfect or
at the Awataguchi kiln in Kyoto, following otherwise unusable Okawachi porcelains
which, according to Kenzan, he spent sev- to be disposed of properly.
eral years in Seto for further training. Re- The finest Nabeshima wares were
turning to Kyoto, Ninsei opened the used exclusively by the clan or presented
Omuro kiln around 1647 through the me- to others of high social rank in the court,
diatory efforts of Kanamori Sówa. By 1656, military, and political spheres. This prac-

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