Pair of Japanese Imari Chargers, Cabinet Plates 19th Century (31cm & 28cm)

Two high quality Imari chargers from Arita, Japan, dating from the 19th century. The centre is hand painted with an underglaze blue dragon on white ground, around which are three compartments featuring lions and flowers in iron-red and green enamel colours and gold. The outside of the rim is decorated in red and blue with mountain and village scenes. The rim is finely scalloped. The plates are unmarked. [Images show larger plate first]

The condition is excellent with minimum wear and no chips, cracks or restoration. Although matching in pattern, one charger is 3cms larger than the other. The smaller one has its original hanging bracket on the back. The porcelain itself contains some firing specks, indicative of its age.

Imari ware is a Western term for a brightly-coloured style of Japanese export porcelain made in the area of Arita, in the former Hizen Province. They were exported to Europe in large quantities, especially between the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century. Typically Imari ware (in the English use of the term) is decorated in underglaze blue, with red, gold, black for outlines, and sometimes other colours, added in overglaze. In the most characteristic floral designs most of the surface is coloured, with "a tendency to overdecoration that leads to fussiness". The style was so successful that Chinese and European producers began to copy it. Sometimes the different overglaze styles of Kakiemon and Kutani ware are also grouped under Imari ware.