東京国立博物館 Archives

My infatuation with Vietnamese pottery began with an unassuming plate that I saw at the National Museum in Tokyo. It was a white-slipped plate with a flower painted in the center coated with a milky glaze. The loosely drawn flower was joyful and full of life, and I was completely captivated by its charm. When I discovered that the plate was made in Vietnam sometime during the Ly and Tran Dynasty of the 13^th and 14^th centuries, I began to dream about visiting that haunting country someday.

Dish in Tokyo’s National Museum with flowering plant design in underglaze iron, from 13th-14th Century Vietnam.
鉄絵草花紋皿　東京国立博物館にて撮影

The opportunity to turn this dream into reality came suddenly this past mid-January when a Vietnamese-American friend invited me to visit Vietnam together. I quickly agreed. But I soon discovered that there was very little information on where to go and see ceramics in Vietnam.

Two vague tips that I received was the Bat Trang (Bát Tràng) pottery village located southeast of Hanoi on the banks of the Red River, and the National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi (Hà Nội), which was said to have a good collection of historic Vietnamese wares. With these clues, I hopped onto a plane for the 20 hour plus journey to Hanoi.

Bat Trang Pottery Village near Hanoi

Bat Trang pottery village is about 45 minutes on Bus No. 47A from Hanoi’s Long Bien Bus Terminal. A taxi will get you there a lot faster, but I enjoyed the slow ride to absorb the lush scenery and Hanoi’s energy that is topped with traffic chaos. The bus took us to the center of the village.

Pottery shops in Bat Trang ceramic village near Hanoi

Bat Trang was exactly what I thought it would be. A village with ornamental large jars and lots of affordable tableware for everyday use, all in the contemporary styles that are preferred by Vietnamese people today. Most of the pots seem to have been made by slip casting.

Left: Bright colored bowls and cups. Right: A lady packing bright colored ceramic pigs probably for the Vietnamese lunar new year celebrations.

Very low hand wheels with matching tiny plastic seats at a shop where customers can experience making pots.

Multi-chambered climbing kiln in Bat Trang. The kiln did not appear to have been used recently.

Although the bright colors and shiny glazes were not exactly to my taste, it was still fascinating to see that the Vietnamese use so many different types of vessels that reflects the country’s rich food culture, like small dishes for sauces, small lidded jars and cooking pots for fish soups. There were popular soup bowls in various sizes with large curved rims that I have rarely seen elsewhere, so I bought a few to take home.

Little bowls with curved rims from Bat Trang, Vietnam.

National Museum of Vietnamese History in Hanoi

It was by pure chance, which I interpret as destiny, to arrive at the National Museum of Vietnamese History just as an extensive exhibit opened of 13^th-18^th century ceramics excavated from ancient shipwrecks off the Vietnamese coast. This show started on January 18^th 2019 and runs until May 18^th 2019. So if you are in the area, I urge you to visit it.

Left: National Museum Right: Shipwreck pottery

About 500 pieces of pottery were on display, many of which were my favorite Vietnamese blue-and-white ceramics from the 15^th century. In the current Japanese handmade pottery scene, there are many makers who have been heavily influenced by this era of Vietnamese pottery. It was interesting to observe that the current ceramics taste in Vietnam is moving away from these traditional painted styles, while in Japan the “Annam-style”, is having its moment.

Vietnamese blue and white ceramic containers from the 15th Century

As a modern day importer of handmade ceramics, I get cold sweat thinking about a big chunk of my orders sinking in the ocean on its way to the US. But my creative imagination exploded with these remnants from the shipwrecks because they offered a unique window into the aesthetics and lives of Vietnamese people from the distant past. After witnessing the tastes and skills built into these pots, I could understand why they were coveted by people from so many surrounding countries, and such great efforts were made to trade them overseas.

Ho Chi Minh

I had no pointers of where to go in Ho Chi Minh (Hồ Chí Minh) City for pottery, so I took the advice of Professor Matsui, one of Japan’s leading experts on Mingei who told me to “study objects from the past to understand Mingei and the beauty of handmade items for use.” Which meant that I hit the streets to look at antique stores.

Vintage Song Be Ware of Ho Chi Minh

I had never heard of “Song Be (Sông Bé)” ware, but a friend who lives in Ho Chi Minh said it was local, everyday use pottery, that was influenced by the French, who had ruled Vietnam between the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. Indeed I see similarities to the French Strasbourg and Quimper ceramics, along with some Chinese influence, but overall it is distinctly Vietnamese in spontaneity.

Vintage Song Be ware at Kito Shop on Dong Khoi street in Ho Chi Minh

These pots made me think about the resilience of the Vietnamese people, and their long struggle of facing hordes of foreign invaders, which sadly included Japan during the Second World War. Some people said that Song Be kilns are still making pottery, while others told me they have stopped production. I hope to find out definitively what the current situation is soon.

More vintage Song Be ware at Kito shop in Ho Chi Minh

Shipwreck Pottery in Ho Chi Minh

In one of the shops on Antique Street that I visited in Ho Chi Minh, I found a mound of blue-and-white small jars and covered jars that looked very similar to the ones I saw at the museum in Hanoi.

A huge pile of jarlets at an antique shop in Ho Chi Minh. Many had little birds drawn on them.

The shopkeeper told me that fishermen had found these items in the ocean. I was very surprised that precious 15^th century pots were so casually sold! From the pile, I chose a covered container that had a beautiful painting of a flower, drawn in distinctively relaxed Vietnamese strokes together with a few jarlets. I later found similar pots online, with mention of them being “Hoi An hoard”. I’m not sure what this means, but want to find out more about them.

More shipwreck pottery at an antique store in Ho Chi Minh.

After the Trip

In this one week trip to Vietnam, I felt like I did not even scratch the surface of grasping the mystery of Vietnamese ceramics traditions that I am so attracted to. But the visit reinforced my conviction that there is much more to discover and learn in Vietnam. Initially, I was very surprised at how little is published on Vietnamese pottery, despite its long and rich traditions. But as Yanagi Muneyoshi, founder of the Mingei movement once said, “In understanding beauty, intuition is more of the essence than intellectual perception. The reversal of these two faculties stultifies vision. To “see” is to go direct to the core; to know the facts about an object of beauty is to go around the periphery. Intellectual discrimination is less essential to an understanding of beauty than the power of intuition that precedes it.” So I am determined to visit Vietnam again, to see first, and maybe know afterwards.

Ceramics offer a fascinating window into Japan’s turbulent past and Nabeshima pottery is a captivating example of how history and pottery comes together. The fortunes of this elegant and noble style of ceramics mirror the ups and downs of Japanese history over the past four centuries.

Nabeshima ceramics originated from Arita in Saga Prefecture on Kyushu around the time when porcelain ware was first produced in Japan by Korean potters. The potters were brought to the country after the invasion of Korea by warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi around 400 years ago. It is also believed that Chinese ceramics traders from Imari, not too far from Arita, introduced the overglaze enamel technique to this region during this period.

Hana-Ikada — Iro-Nabeshima plate from the 18th century. Its bold design possesses a unique sense of clarity and pride unlike any other Japanese ceramics. This one from the Tokyo National Museum depicts the “flower raft”, a Japanese term that describes the fallen petals of cherry blossoms floating on the river surface like rafts. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

The Nabeshima kiln was established in the middle of the 17^th Century as the feudal kiln of the local Nabeshima clan, who brought together the best craftsmen in the region to produce high quality porcelain tableware.

Decorated in blue-on-white underglaze, or multi-colored overglaze enamel (known as Iro-Nabeshima) or celadon, Nabeshima ceramics were only produced as gifts for the ruling shogun family and feudal lords during the Edo period (1603-1867). As a consequence of this tightly held circulation within the privileged elite, Nabeshima pottery was largely unknown to the general population until Shogunate rule ended with the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

Karahana — The brilliance of the enamel colors can be seen in this close-up of Iro-Nabeshima from the 17th-18th centuries. This plate from the Tokyo National Museum depicts Chinese flowers. In traditional Iro-Nabeshima, only three enamel colors of red, green and yellow are used besides cobalt underglaze. (A few rare pieces used black and gold) In this bold design, the center part is left white in the shape of a cherry blossom. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

My preference for ceramics styles that possess the essence of uncalculated spontaneity rather than precision and perfection meant that I initially found the meticulous beauty of Nabeshima rigid and difficult to appreciate. But my perspective changed during a visit to the Tokyo National Museum when I saw an Iro-Nabeshima plate with Flower and Raft design.

Although the plate was made in the 18^th century, the enamel colors of red, green and yellow were so bright and vivid against the beautiful cobalt underglaze. It almost seemed like the air surrounding the plate was a little clearer than the rest of the museum –and I swear I was not inhaling any questionable substances at the time! The plate’s bold design possessed a unique sense of clarity and pride unlike any other ceramics work that I have seen.

So I was excited when the opportunity arose in the spring of 2013 to visit the Imaizumi Imaemon Kiln in Arita, which is carrying on the tradition of the making of Nabeshima ceramics.

Red roof tiles — Imaizumi Imaemon kiln in Arita is the oldest building in the area dating back to 1830. The roof tiles along the second floor are stained red from the enamel used by artisans that worked on the second floor. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

The Imaizumi Imaemon family has a long and illustrious history that dates back to the Edo period when it was first commissioned as the Nabeshima’s official overglaze enamel artisan (or Akae-shi). For over 200 years, the family enjoyed the financial support of successive feudal lords. However, when the feudal fief system was replaced with the prefectural administrative system in the Meiji era, the Nabeshima kiln collapsed with the ending of shogunate largesse.

Molds — Slump molds used by the Imaizumi Imaemon Kiln. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

The 10^th generation master painter Imaemon, who was the family patriarch during this crisis, decided to do whatever was necessary to preserve the technique for the production of Iro-Nabeshima. From scratch, the family had to painstakingly learn forming and firing techniques, which took many years and only began to bear fruit in the early 20^th Century under the 12^th generation Imaemon. For this enormous accomplishment, the Imaemon kiln was recognized as an important intangible cultural asset by the Japanese government in 1971.

The porcelain bowls are formed by trimming them into shape. Each piece is weighed to the exacting thickness. — A craftsman forming a porcelain bowl by trimming it into shape. Each piece is weighed to an exacting thickness. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

During my visit to the kiln, which is located in the Akae-machi (overglaze town) district of Arita, I saw a craftsman trimming a porcelain bowl and carefully measuring it to its required exact weight on a scale. The kiln was loaded with numerous saggars that encased the pieces to protect them from ashes of pine wood used for firing.

Each piece is fired inside a saggar in traditional wood-firing kiln using pine wood. — Each piece is fired inside a saggar in a traditional kiln fired using pine wood. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

One noticeable sight was the piles of rejected bisque wares, many of which were discarded for the slightest hints of flaws. It was clear that precision and design perfection is of utmost importance, which is a rare quality in Japanese pottery kilns that tend to focus on extemporaneity and simplicity.

Imaemon’s formulas for glazes and their application techniques are still closely-held secrets that are handed down to only a single son of each generation who takes over the name of “Imaizumi Imaemon”.

Rejects — Large piles of rejected porcelain plates with minor imperfections. (Photo by Studio Kotokoto)

The kiln today produces two distinct lines of Iro-Nabeshima, the first of which are created in line with the traditional style of Iro-Nabeshima by over 30 craftsmen. The second line is of a modern Iro-Nabeshima created by the current 14^th generation Imaizumi Imaemon.

If the opportunity arises, I would highly recommend a visit to the Imaemon museum or shop in Arita. They also have a satellite shop in Tokyo. Imaemon’s work is unequivocally stunning, with striking designs, pristine lines, and clever use of the white spaces of natural porcelain. Even if the pricing may seem out of reach for many, including myself, it is still a sheer delight to be able to see this fine work and to pick out a favorite piece you would have liked to take home.

* “Nabeshima” by Motosuke Imaizumi (Tokyo; Kodansha International, 1981) was used as a reference for this blog post.

Tag: 東京国立博物館

Visiting Vietnam: Traveling in the Land of my Pottery Crush

Impeccable Workmanship: The Refined Nabeshima Pottery of Imaizumi Imaemon