Japanese or Chinese? Non-invasive analysis of East Asian blue-and-white porcelain

Abstract

Japanese blue-and-white porcelain was developed in the Hizen area on Kyushu during the early seventeenth century and quickly shared the overseas markets with Chinese blue-and-white, which has been the favorite porcelain ware in those markets since the fourteenth century. Although most Hizen export blue-and-white imitated Chinese patterns, several visual and stylistic criteria have been identified that differentiate the productions of the two countries. Nevertheless, in archeological contexts, distinguishing blue-and-white porcelain sherds of different provenance remains a real challenge. In this paper, the chemical composition of Hizen blue-and-white porcelain sherds excavated from four sites within Spanish colonial Manila has been investigated with non-invasive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) complemented with fiber optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS). The data were compared with those obtained on samples from the two main blue-and-white porcelain production centers in China: Jingdezhen and Zhangzhou. The results have revealed the characteristics of Hizen ware and shown that blue-and-white porcelain produced in Arita using the Izumiyama deposits as the raw material can be distinguished from the Chinese productions using pXRF. However, this research has also highlighted the limitations of the approach and the need for a more systematic study of the blue-and-white porcelain production from the various kiln complexes in the Hizen domain and beyond.