|
Subject:Re: Satsuma vase?
Posted By: Bill H Wed, Jan 03, 2018
Satsuma is more of a state of mind nowadays. The Ruling family of Satsuma came out on the losing side in the Meiji Rebellion in 1868. Their kilns lost claim thereafter to be a source of royal ceramics, not that Kyoto and other studios didn't perpetuate the lucrative practice of applying the Satsuma royal crest's device of a cross within a circle to marks on their export wares.
So technically, anything unmarked and made after 1868, such as this pair of vases, could probably best be described as "made of Satsuma-style crackled stoneware". This would serve the fact that similar patterns also were being painted on the same kind of pottery by shops in Yokohama, Nagasaki and some other spots besides Kyoto. The same thing goes for Satsuma-marked wares of Studios in Kyoto that are known to have been producing during the Meiji export boom of the last quarter of the 19th century and later. Those latter-day marks with the circled cross are no more Satsuma mark and period than a Qianlong mark on Chinese porcelain made yesterday.
Now cover the children's ears and consider how there might be a bit more "truth in advertising" on this particular subject if everyone finally accepted how the Dukes of Satsuma were LOSERS! And since nobody likes LOSERS, why give these deposed punks a free ride by calling stuff "Satsuma" when it was made somewhere else and years after these ne'er-do-wells became lousy LOSERS!
And that's my screed for today. ;)
Cheers,
Bill H.
|