Imari-Arita ware

Saga Prefecture, Designated as Traditional Crafts since 1977

The beginning of Imari-Arita-ware is that one of warlords, Naoshige Nabeshima brough back some potters when he joined the Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s campaign in Korea. One of the potters, Li Sanpei discovers porcelain stone at Mt. Izumi Arita is located in northern Kyushu, and he started manufacturing Arita ware with the material in 1616. These potters blushed up the manufacturing method for the ware with consolidating other ways which originally came from Korea and China.  In 1646, One of the potters, Kakiemon Sakaita succeeded in attaching color on the ware and they created the first color porcelain ware at that time. These color wares were exported to oversee in the 1650s and they had been getting popular especially in Europe. The Arita-Imari ware have been developing for 400+ years and they have kept attracting people for a long time with their traits, beautiful white base-porcelain, robustness, and usefulness.