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Enamels and Pigments in Japanese Art from the 16Th to the 20Th Century

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Enamels and Pigments in Japanese Art from the 16Th to the 20Th Century European ceramic technology in the Far East: enamels and pigments in Japanese art from the 16th to the 20th century and their reverse influence on China Riccardo Montanari, Nobuyuki Murakami, Philippe Colomban, Maria Alberghina, Claudia Pelosi, Salvatore Schiavone To cite this version: Riccardo Montanari, Nobuyuki Murakami, Philippe Colomban, Maria Alberghina, Claudia Pelosi, et al.. European ceramic technology in the Far East: enamels and pigments in Japanese art from the 16th to the 20th century and their reverse influence on China. Heritage Science, Springer, 2020, 8, pp.48. 10.1186/s40494-020-00391-2. hal-02797126 HAL Id: hal-02797126 https://hal.sorbonne-universite.fr/hal-02797126 Submitted on 5 Jun 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Montanari et al. Herit Sci (2020) 8:48 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-020-00391-2 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access European ceramic technology in the Far East: enamels and pigments in Japanese art from the 16th to the 20th century and their reverse infuence on China Riccardo Montanari1* , Nobuyuki Murakami2, Philippe Colomban3, Maria Francesca Alberghina4, Claudia Pelosi5 and Salvatore Schiavone4 Abstract The production of Japanese enamels for porcelain decoration was thought to have originated from the direct and exclusive infuence of Chinese potters who moved to Japan during the chaotic Ming to Qing dynastic change in 1644. Recent systematic studies have identifed, for the frst time, the crucial infuence of Jesuit missionaries on pigment and enamel production in Japan from the late 16th-century. In particular, such frst encounter laid the foundation for the continued infuence exerted by European technology on Japanese art throughout the centuries. The present study has further identifed European enamels used for the decoration of polychrome wares fred in Arita, the porcelain production center of Japan. This continued exchange not only marked the Edo period, but also extended into the twentieth century. For the frst time, the lack of written records regarding the use of western pigments for enamel production caused by the persecutions of European and Japanese Christians has been overcome in the work herein presented. The nature of the imported materials has been frmly identifed and characterized. The analytical results (EDXRF and Raman) have fnally revealed how western technology and materials not only kept infuencing Japanese art during the isolation (sakoku) period, but also accompanied the strong westernization process that marked Japa- nese history from the late nineteenth century. Moreover, the signifcant reverse infuence of Japanese-made enamels on Chinese polychrome porcelain production in the late Qing and twentieth century has been fully identifed for the frst time. Furthermore, results show that the shift of the Pb mode of lead antimonate (Naples Yellow) is afected by the fring temperature for enamel decoration, and that this characteristic, along with the chemical composition, enables the identifcation of the origin and manufacture period of the yellow enamel. Keywords: Porcelain, Enamel, Pigment, Painting, Japan, Jesuit, Seminario, China, EDXRF, Raman Introduction and historical context caused many of them to fee to Japan to fnd new proft- Te production of overglaze enamels in Japan was long able markets for their own survival. Yet, recent system- thought to have originated from the direct and exclu- atic studies on the origin of the materials employed for sive infuence of Chinese potters in the mid seventeenth polychrome decoration identifed, for the frst time, the century [1, 2] when the collapse of the Ming dynasty technological exchange that occurred between Jesuit missionaries and Japanese painters and potters from the late sixteenth century [3, 4]. In particular, the Euro- *Correspondence: [email protected] pean Renaissance practice of using the same coloring 1 Independent Researcher, Expert Witness, Rome, Italy agents both for paintings and ceramics was unquestion- Full list of author information is available at the end of the article ably confrmed by the matching compound detected on a © The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creat​iveco​ mmons​.org/licen​ses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat​iveco​mmons​.org/publi​cdoma​in/ zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Montanari et al. Herit Sci (2020) 8:48 Page 2 of 17 coloured porcelain and a European style painting created prints, and paintings) throughout the Edo period (1603– by a Japanese painter who studied at the Jesuit Seminario 1868) and into the twentieth century. under the direction of the Italian Jesuit painter Giovanni We report here a non-destructive analysis carried Cola from 1583 [4]. Te production of sacred and secu- out by X-Ray Fluorescence (ED-XRF) and Raman spec- lar images based on models imported from Europe, be troscopy in order to get more information on the use of it prints, engravings or paintings, involved the use of these ceramic pigments, thus overcoming the daunting European pigments that did not exist in Japan at the time issue of the lack of written records regarding the use of [3–6]. Tese new pigments also marked Chinese enamel western pigments and/or western technology for enamel production from the early eighteenth century, after Jes- production. Shards of polychrome decorated porcelains uit missionaries were ordered by the Kangxi Emperor in fred in Arita, the porcelain production center of Japan, 1695 to establish a glass workshop in the Palace to repro- dating from the nineteenth and twentieth century, were duce the enamels of western origin that had strongly analyzed with the aim of identifying the coloring agents impressed him [7, 8]. Recently, Raman analyses have con- employed for such production. Te results have fnally frmed the use of European enamel precursors at the end provided a defnitive answer, revealing how western tech- of Kangxi reign as mentioned in historical records [9, 10]. nology and materials not only kept infuencing Japanese Tis pattern of infuence had actually originated in Japan art during the isolation (sakoku) period, but also accom- in the late sixteenth century [3, 4]. Additional evidence panied the strong westernization process of the country comes from Naito Tokuen Johan [11], a Christian samurai that marked Japanese craft and industry from the late and close friend of Takayama Ukon, who supported the nineteenth century. establishment of a glass workshop in the painting Semi- nario built by the Jesuits in Arie in 1595 under the super- Materials and methods vision of Giovanni Cola [11]. Te Jesuit Seminario was Analyzed shards attended by Japanese and Chinese painters eager to learn All analyzed shards were provided by the Arita Museum European oil painting techniques [12]. Te imported of History, Arita, Saga Prefecture, Japan, and were mostly compounds employed for such purpose were scarce excavated at the Aka-e machi site (enamellers’ quarter) and very expensive [6], so their use was strictly allowed located in the Uchiyama area of Arita, where all enam- to those having trained under the direct supervision of ellers had been moved by the Nabeshima clan in the Giovanni Cola himself. In particular, tin and antimony late 1650s in order to improve the production process were important elements used in Renaissance Europe through better labor organization [4]. Te shards provide for enameling of majolica [13–16], Limoges metal wares crucial information regarding the coloring agents and [17], and for preparing painting pigments [18, 19]. Both enamel preparation techniques employed when the pres- end-members of pyrochlore solid solutions (lead–tin yel- ence of western countries increased signifcantly and the low and lead antimonate yellow) as well as more complex Tokugawa shogunate was about to collapse. Characteris- solid solutions had been largely used since Roman times tics are summarized in Fig. 1. [20–22]. Tese same pigments have been detected on the XRF spectrometer: experimental and measurement famous Painting of the Madonna with the Infant Jesus parameters and Her Fifteen Mysteries (1620 s, Japan) [5] and on the Te employed XRF portable instrument consists of a min-
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