Chinese Imari - From the 18th Century to the 21st Century

When speaking of oriental earthenware we ordinarily connect the name "Imari" with Japan, but there is also a Chinese Imari. Production of Japanese style embellishment began at Jingdezhen in the early 18th century. Jingdezhen, historically, being the great centre of Chinese earthenware production.

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For over 2,000 years, Jingdezhen has been known as the earthenware Capital of the world. Originally known as Xinpin, its name was changed when the Jingde Emperor (1004-1007) of the Southern Song dynasty, decreed all the pieces made for the Imperial court were to be marked 'made in the Jingde period'.

During the long Ming and Qing dynasties, earthenware Production reached new levels of refinement and kilns were set up to cater exclusively to the need of the imperial house. The imperial earthenware was so perfect that it was described as being "as white as jade, as animated as a mirror, as thin as paper, with a sound as clear as a bell". Today, Jingdezhen remains the national Chinese centre for earthenware production.

The Japanese, circa 1700, were the first to furnish the combination of enamel colours which typify the Imari pallet, underglaze blue, red and gilt, and occasionally green enamels.

Dutch traders now had a monopoly on the insatiable European question for porcelain. The first large orders settled with the Japanese kilns at Arita by the Dutch East India enterprise in 1656. With trade peaking in the late 17th century It soon came to the attention of the vast Chinese Imperial kilns at Jingdezhen, that Japanese Imari earthenware was in high question in Europe and abruptly began to furnish Imari wares in competition with the Japanese.

The first Chinese Imari pieces were produced while the latter half of Kangxi Emperors reign (1662-1722).with the kilns soon producing a Chinese version of the Japanese Imari style. With the making ready of large European orders, Chinese kilns moderately substituted the Japanese Production in the early 18th century, particularly as social conditions in China settled down, the Production of export earthenware having roughly stopped with the turmoil at the end of the Ming dynasty. Now, with the full making ready of the Qing dynasty, the factories reopened around 1700 with the Jingdezhen kilns ultimately eclipsing the customary Japanese exports.

The Chinese stock differs from the Japanese Imari in that the earthenware is thinner and clearer in colour with the embellishment more delicate and more sparsely placed. The embellishment can also contain painting in the Famille Verte enamels with some of the earliest armorial services produced for the English shop decorated in the Chinese Imari style. This first period of Chinese earthenware in Japanese Imari style is generally carefully to have been produced from circa1700 - circa 1760.

The Chinese attitude to their vast inheritance of art and construct differs markedly from Western thinking, which tends to classify art into dissimilar historic periods, associating styles, framed in time.

The Chinese, on the other hand, tend to overlap distinctive artistic styles with no real idea of when a style began, or, if it had reached a quit date! And Chinese Imari de facto fits this concept. Chinese Imari is still produced at Jingdezhen today and examples are still decorated with devices and symbols, so antique that few have the comprehension to illustrate their meaning.

As example, the embellishment often includes the antique "Eight Trigrams" dating to 2852 - 2737 Bce. The eight trigrams are groups of lines arranged in ranks; they form the bases of the Bagua, which is an antique Chinese system of doctrine and divination. The symbols were and, are used as a decorative motif on many Chinese items.

Chinas' recorded history of over 5000 years has left a vast inheritance of art and construct and it is from this wealth of art that China still draws from.

Chinese Imari - From the 18th Century to the 21st Century
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