Arita Ware: The Story of Japan's First Porcelain

Most of Japan’s celebrated pottery towns are old — some of them a thousand years old. Arita ware is not. When potters in the hills of what is now Saga Prefecture pulled the first true Arita porcelain from a climbing kiln in the early 1600s, they did something no one in Japan had managed before: they made porcelain. Hard, white, ringing, translucent at the rim — the material that had made China famous for centuries finally had a Japanese home. Four hundred years later, Arita is still firing, and the blue-and-white bowls and gold-rimmed cups it sends around the world trace an unbroken line back to that first discovery.

This guide walks through where Arita porcelain came from, how to tell its major styles apart — blue-and-white, Kakiemon, Ko-Imari, and Nabeshima — and why the same ware is sometimes called “Imari.” It sits alongside our wider guide to Japan’s pottery regions and our explainer on Japanese stoneware versus porcelain, where Arita is the porcelain everyone points to.

A Korean potter, a white stone, and Japan’s first porcelain

The Arita story begins with clay that wasn’t there yet. Japan had made superb stoneware for centuries, but porcelain requires a specific white, kaolin-rich stone fired at very high temperatures — and no one had found the right raw material. That changed after the Japanese invasions of Korea in the 1590s, when feudal lords brought skilled Korean potters back to their domains. The lord of the Saga (Hizen) domain settled a group of these potters on Kyushu, where they first revived a rustic stoneware called Karatsu ware and introduced the noborigama, the multi-chamber climbing kiln that fires with far greater control.

By tradition, the breakthrough is credited to a Korean potter known in Japan as Kanagae Sanbee — often called Ri Sanpei (Yi Sam-pyeong). Around 1616 he is said to have found porcelain stone in the Arita district, and by about 1630 the discovery of abundant, high-quality stone at Izumiyama put full-scale porcelain production within reach. The infrastructure was already in place; what the potters had lacked was the stone. Once they had it, Hizen became the porcelain heartland of Japan.

In one paragraph: Arita ware (有田焼) is porcelain made in and around the town of Arita in Saga Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu. It is widely regarded as the first porcelain produced in Japan, beginning in the early 1600s after Korean potters found suitable white porcelain stone at Izumiyama. Unlike the older stoneware kilns, Arita was a seventeenth-century newcomer — and it is the tradition that taught Japan to make white porcelain.

Why Arita is not one of the “Six Ancient Kilns”

If you’ve read about Japanese ceramics before, you’ll have met the Six Ancient Kilns — Bizen, Tokoname, Shigaraki, Echizen, Tamba, and Seto. Those are all stoneware traditions, some of them medieval, prized for their earthy, unglazed surfaces. Arita belongs to a different family entirely. It is younger, and it is porcelain: refined, painted, and built for the table rather than the tea hut. That contrast is the quickest way to place Arita in the wider map of Japanese pottery. Where Shigaraki celebrates the accident of fire and ash — see our Shigaraki ware guide — Arita celebrates control: a flawless white ground and a painter’s steady hand.

Blue-and-white first, then color: sometsuke, Kakiemon, and Ko-Imari

The earliest Arita porcelain was sometsuke (染付) — designs painted in cobalt blue under a clear glaze, fired once at high heat. Blue-and-white is still the signature Arita look: cobalt on a bright white body, fluid and calligraphic. Our Arita sometsuke oval platter in the auspicious shōchikubai (pine, bamboo, and plum) pattern is a classic example of that first idiom.

Then came color. Potters developed overglaze enamel — iroe (色絵) or akae (赤絵) — in the 1630s, painting a second layer of red, green, yellow, blue, and black over the fired glaze and firing again at a lower temperature to fix it. Two overglaze styles became world-famous:

Kakiemon takes its name from the Kakiemon kiln in Arita, which perfected a warm, sparing style: a few well-placed birds, flowers, or figures floating on a milky-white ground called nigoshide. The restraint is the point — empty space is part of the design. Modern potters still work in this idiom; our Kakiemon-style cup and saucer carries a ume-kachō (plum blossom and bird) motif in the same five-color palette.

Ko-Imari (“Old Imari”) is the opposite temperament: dense, luxurious, and heavy with gold. It layers cobalt blue, iron red, and gilding into brocade-like patterns — a style so lavish that its finest examples were once called “white gold.” The gold-brocade look has a name of its own, kinrande (金襴手). You can see the tradition running through our Ko-Imari lidded bowl, with its phoenix and peony, and our red-and-gold kinrande chrysanthemum cup and saucer.

Quick glossary: hakuji = plain white porcelain; sometsuke = underglaze cobalt blue-and-white; iroe / akae = polychrome overglaze enamel; nigoshide = the soft milky-white body used for Kakiemon; kinrande = gold-brocade decoration; Ko-Imari = the older, gold-rich export style. These are the words that unlock almost any Arita label.

Nabeshima: the porcelain the lords kept for themselves

Not all Arita porcelain was made to sell. The Nabeshima lords who controlled the region wanted a ware fine enough to present as gifts to the shogun and other nobles, so around the middle of the seventeenth century they set up a strictly guarded official kiln. Its output — Nabeshima ware — is often called the most refined Japanese porcelain of all: smooth surfaces, soft colors, precise designs borrowed from textiles and nature, frequently raised on a tall, elegant foot. The kiln’s techniques were secret, forbidden from the open market, and eventually concentrated at Okawachiyama near the port of Imari. Nabeshima was never export ware; it was diplomacy in porcelain form.

Imari: the port that gave the ware its export name

Here is where two names for one ware come from. The kilns were in Arita, but the finished porcelain left Japan through the nearby port of Imari. To the merchants who shipped and traded it — especially the Dutch — the ware was simply “Imari.” So “Arita ware” and “Imari ware” usually mean the same thing: Arita names the place it was made, Imari names the harbor it sailed from.

And it sailed a long way. After Japan closed itself to most foreign contact in 1639, Dutch traders on the island of Deshima, near Nagasaki, kept a narrow channel open. When political turmoil in China disrupted the porcelain that had dominated the world market, the Dutch East India Company turned to the young Japanese industry to fill the gap. Through the latter half of the 1600s, huge quantities of Arita porcelain flowed to Europe, where blue-and-white and gilded Imari became prized decoration in aristocratic homes and palaces — and shaped European ceramics that tried to imitate it.

How to recognize — and start collecting — Arita porcelain

For a shopper today, a few habits make Arita easy to read. Look first at the body: true porcelain is white, dense, and slightly translucent where it’s thin, and it rings when tapped. Then read the decoration: cool cobalt under a glassy glaze is sometsuke; sparse, warm enamels on bright white lean Kakiemon; dense blue-red-and-gold brocade is Ko-Imari. Modern Arita is famously practical — much of it is comfortable in the dishwasher and microwave, though hand-washing is always kindest to gold-decorated pieces, because gilding can scorch and abrade.

Arita never stopped evolving, either. Historic houses still work in Saga alongside contemporary studios; our Fukagawa Seiji iridescent vase comes from an Arita house recognized as a purveyor to the Imperial Household in the early twentieth century, now painting pearlescent, thoroughly modern pieces on the same white porcelain. That range — from seventeenth-century blue-and-white to pastel iridescence — is exactly what makes Arita such a rewarding tradition to collect.

Arita ware in the ZenKiln catalogue

We keep a rotating selection of hand-painted Arita and neighboring Hasami porcelain, each piece disclosed by kiln in our shop. A few that show the tradition’s range:

• Arita Sometsuke Oval Platter — Shōchikubai: classic cobalt blue-and-white in the pine-bamboo-plum pattern, the oldest Arita idiom.
• Arita Kakiemon-Style Cup & Saucer: a plum-blossom-and-bird motif in five-color overglaze enamel on a milky nigoshide ground.
• Arita Ko-Imari Lidded Bowl: phoenix, peony, and birds in the dense blue-red-and-gold Old Imari palette.
• Arita Red & Gold Kinrande Cup & Saucer: gold-brocade chrysanthemums, the “white gold” look at teacup scale.
• Arita Hakuji Wind Chime: a hand-painted white-porcelain furin, a seasonal way to bring Arita’s ringing body into summer.

Browse the full Arita & Hasami Ware collection to see what’s currently in stock. If you’re new to Japanese porcelain more broadly, our beginner’s guide to Kutani ware makes a good companion — Kutani is Arita’s colorful cousin from the other side of Japan.

Frequently asked questions

What is Arita ware?

Arita ware is porcelain made in and around the town of Arita in Saga Prefecture, Japan. Beginning in the early 1600s, it is generally considered the first porcelain produced in Japan. It is known for a bright white body decorated with cobalt blue-and-white (sometsuke) and colorful overglaze enamel styles such as Kakiemon and Ko-Imari.

What is the difference between Arita ware and Imari ware?

They usually refer to the same porcelain. “Arita” is the town where the kilns are located; “Imari” is the nearby port from which the ware was historically shipped. Merchants and export markets called it Imari, while the place of manufacture is Arita, so the two names are largely interchangeable.

Is Arita ware porcelain or stoneware?

Arita ware is porcelain. It is fired from a white, kaolin-rich porcelain stone at very high temperatures, producing a hard, dense, slightly translucent body that rings when tapped — distinct from the heavier, more porous stoneware of kilns like Shigaraki or Bizen.

What are Kakiemon, Ko-Imari, and Nabeshima styles?

They are three overglaze traditions within Arita porcelain. Kakiemon is a sparing, elegant style of a few motifs on a milky-white ground; Ko-Imari (Old Imari) is a dense, gold-rich export style; and Nabeshima was a refined ware made at an official domain kiln for the ruling class rather than for sale.

Is Arita ware safe for everyday use?

Much modern Arita porcelain is made for daily use, and many pieces are dishwasher- and microwave-safe. Pieces decorated with gold or delicate hand-painted enamel are best hand-washed and kept out of the microwave, since gilding can scorch and wear over time. Always follow the care note included with an individual piece.

Where is Arita ware made?

Arita ware is made in the town of Arita and the surrounding area of Saga Prefecture, on the island of Kyushu in southwestern Japan. The neighboring town of Hasami, just over the Nagasaki border, produces closely related porcelain in the same tradition.

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Editor’s note: This guide draws on the history of Arita and Imari porcelain as documented by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Saga Ceramics Industrial Association, the official body of the Imari and Arita porcelain kilns. Where early history is traditional rather than firmly documented — such as the potter Kanagae Sanbee — we’ve said so rather than inventing detail. Written from our atelier in Japan by the ZenKiln editorial team.