Treasures of Imperial Japan, Volume 5, Part 2, Earthenware

The second part of the catalogue of the ceramic holdings of the Collection focuses on another great artist-entrepreneur, Yabu Meizan (1853-1934), and illustrates 168 of his earthenwares and those of his contemporaries and imitators, minutely decorated in enamels and gold over a characteristic crackled ground.These wares, under the misleading name of 'Satsuma', were the most popular of the Japanese craft products which dazzled the Western world in the era of the great exhibitions.A further essay by Impey and Fairley demolishes the various myths about the origin of 'Satsuma' put about by Japanese and Western writers in the late 19th-century, while a biography of Yabu Meizan by Yamazaki Tsuyoshi, illustrated with copious examples of his work from the Yabu family archive and from contemporary illustrations, sheds fascinating light on the evolution of his style and working methods.