Antique Collector - Oriental Antiques |
Chinese and Japanese pottery and porcelain
Chinese ceramics is a form of fine art developed since the dynastic periods. China has always been richly endowed with the raw materials needed for making ceramics. The first types were made about 11,000 years ago, during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese Ceramics range from construction materials such as bricks and tiles to hand-built pottery vessels fired in bonfires or kilns to the sophisticated porcelain wares made for the imperial court.
Japanese pottery and porcelain, one of the country's oldest art forms, dates back to the Neolithic period. Kilns have produced earthenware, pottery, stoneware, glazed pottery, glazed stoneware, porcelain, blue and white ware, and enamel wares.
Imari porcelain is the European collectors' name for Japanese porcelain wares made in the town of Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyushu, and exported from the port of Imari, Saga, specifically for the European export trade. In Japanese, these porcelains are known as Arita-yaki.
