Kutani-yaki china plates for displaying

Compared to an exotic Imari (Arita) ware, the color of a Kutani ware is darker and softer. But it’s dynamic. Yet delicate.

As the traditional ceramic has more than 460 years, there are some types and you can select from one what you like. It also must be best suited as a gift for your friends, family, and significant.

Most of the plates showed in this page are 30cm (11.8 inches) – 40cm (15.7 inches) diameter. They would have a strong presence in the rooms.

What is Kutani-yaki (ware) ?

The history of Kutani-yaki began in 1655.

The first Daishoji Domain lord Maeda Toshiharu made Goto Saijiro learn the technique of Arita (Imari) ware and start the ceramic industry in his domain. The name of the village where the porcelain stone was produced was Kutani. So, they called the porcelain as “Kutani-yaki”.

The old Kutani ware has a feature of a green body. And the craftsmen took advantage of the color as one of the paints. Otherwise, the style using five colors, green, yellow, purple, red, and navy was famous old Kutani (Kokutani).

Though the pottery gained the reputation, the industrials disappeared from the Daishoji Domain just some 50 years after. The apparent reason hasn’t come out yet. But the researchers gather that it is the financial difficulties or policy shift of the domain.

After about 100 years of the passing, the movement of the renaissance came off. It brought forth the master craftsmen who created porcelain with red as based color or gold lines.

Since then, the Kutani ceramic plate and vase gained popularity around the world as a work of art. On the other hand, Japanese people love the pottery as a tableware for everyday life.