Hizen

Porcelain making got its start there after Hideyoshi Toyotomi attacked Korea in the 1590s and brought back Korean pottery experts, who settled in Hizen province.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

Zheng was "the most important merchant" dealing in Hizen porcelain of the time, and his ships plied back and forth between Japan, the Fukien coast which he controlled into the late 1650s, carrying porcelain, though no Hizen porcelain has been found there it is known from Macao.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

Nogami then goes on to discuss his finds of shards of Hizen porcelain in Manila and elsewhere in the Spanish Philippines.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

Thus, through the humble prism of Hizen porcelain, we can get a glimpse of how the Zheng state and Taiwan participated in the first great era of globalized trade that connected Madrid, Manila, and Mexico city in a vast network of exchange.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

As a result of the reduction of the quantity of Chinese porcelain for export, the number of kilns in Hizen producing export wares suddenly increased, and Hizen wares spread in the overseas market, many pieces being found in sites in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and Indonesia.p125

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

She notes the cargoes of these ships included “Japanese dishes” (Fang 2003: 82).(p128)Sure enough, the Zheng capital of Tainan has yielded both types of Hizen porcelain -- wares designed for local use, along with a few shards of a type specifically intended for export to European markets.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

Thus, he became the most important merchant for the exportation of Hizen porcelain.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

Today's paper, On Hizen porcelain and the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin 26, by Takenori Nogami, looks at the trade in Hizen porcelain, which is not a Chinese but a Japanese porcelain exported from what was Hizen province in Kyushu until it was split between the Saga and Nagasaki prefectures after the Meiji Restoration.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

The fighting in China cut off shipments of Chinese porcelain, and Hizen porcelain soon came to dominate not only the Japanese domestic market but also overseas markets that had formerly been controlled by the Chinese.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009

The Hizen pottery that transshipped through Tainan left Manila on the tortuous galleon routes bound for Mexico, where they returned with Mexican silver, in the form of silver dollars widely acceptance as currency in China.

Archive 2009-07-01 Michael Turton 2009