An exhibition of Satsuma and related items from the Mejii period.
Friday 18 April to Saturday 17 May 2008

Richard Gardner is delighted to announce the acquisition of a fine collection of Satsuma from the private collection of Caroline Wallrock, which he will
be selling from his showroom in Petworth. In addition to the Satsuma he will also be selling other related items from the Mejii period, including bronzes and ivories.

Caroline Wallrock says: “In 1868 the Mejii dynasty assumed power in Japan and began trading with the West. For the previous centuries, Japan had been in self-imposed exile and so the sudden appearance of Japanese works of art in Europe caused a sensation.
The first pieces to appear were masterpieces exhibited at the Great Exhibitions of the late 19th century. Then this trickle of high quality goods turned into a flow of factory made but still beautifully executed wares, often signed by the craftsmen who made them, but nonetheless produced in their thousands. The Kinkozan label is a good example of this type of output. By the turn of the century the floodgates had opened and mass-produced items poured in.  

   Some of the first collectors were therefore buying from, to them,    unknown artists and investing in completely new decorative    objects. Two such pioneers were George Ashdown Audsley and    James, Lord Bowes. Not only did they research and build up a    collection of considerable originality, they also published it with
   an early treatise on the development of Japanese ceramics. This    handsome book, printed in two large gilt-edged volumes with    numerous hand-tinted and gilded illustrations and photographs,    was called “Keramic Art of Japan” and dated 1875. When I first    read a copy, it fired my imagination and now forms the focus of    this exhibition.

   Over the years I have been gathering pieces in parallel with
   those in the collection and in once instance I have been lucky    enough to find an original piece. Inevitably, a collection such as    the Audsley-Bowes Collection covers a considerable range of    wares so I have concentrated on the Satsuma earthenware    pieces. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, when I began    collecting 20 years ago, many of the pieces shown were    considered to be of the mass-produced, turn of the century
type mentioned above. Obviously that was not the case as these examples were photographed and painted in 1875. I was intrigued!

Secondly, the bulk of the Satsuma illustrated was not of the type popular with other collectors at the time. These can be grouped into two distinct categories. The first, for simplicity, could be called “Imperial Satsuma” and features impressive pieces with bold designs painted in a very limited palette of thick overglaze blue, red, green
and gold. The other wares, typified by the work of Yabu Meizan, are exquisitely painted with scenes of life in Japan depicted in the minutest detail. Both these schools remain highly collectable and
many have become very expensive. By contrast the Audsley-Bowes Collection contains many pieces with a much broader range of
colours including very distinctive greens and turquoises on the one hand and a recurring use of burnt-orange on the other. The subject matter is wider too, and ranges from the floral and brocade motifs so favoured by the “Imperial” potters to the detailed drawings of the “miniature style”. The diversity of decoration is mirrored by the huge variety of pieces in the collection; there are bowls, vases, figures
and incense burners. The smallest bowl is 5cm while the largest vase
is 74cm high.”

There will be a brochure produced for the exhibition and this will be available from mid March 2008.

For further enquiries please contact:

Richard Gardner Antiques, Market Square, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AN Telephone 01789 343411