25 September 2009, an exhibition Satsuma ceramics of Japan in the State Hermitage Collection opened in the Blackamoor Dining-Room.

Ornate items with bright painting and gilding made of light-coloured ceramic mixture and covered with glaze with tiny cracks were very popular in Europe at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. In Japan this caused the appearance of items performed in the Satsuma style that were made in other ceramics centres and intended for export to Europe. The exhibition devoted to the ceramics of Satsuma Province is held for the first time in Russia.

The collection of the State Hermitage allows tracing different stages of the development of Satsuma ceramics and the Satsuma style from the beginning of the 18th century till the first third of the 20th century. The collection demonstrates all the variety of technical and artistic techniques that were used in ornamentation of the items. Despite the fact that this collection is not big, it is imposing enough, and along with the collection of the State Museum of Oriental Art (Moscow) it is the most significant in Russia.

70 works by Japanese ceramicists are displayed at the exhibition, except for five items that have not been exhibited before.

A full-colour illustrated catalogue (State Hermitage Publishing House, St Petersburg, 2009) has been prepared and published for the exhibition. The curator of the exhibition is Tatyana Arapova, leading researcher of the Oriental Department.

Catalogue of the exhibition

Booklet of the exhibition

More

Tatyana Arapova, Curator of the exhibition and author of the exhibition catalogue

Anna Egorova, author of the exhibition catalogue

At the ceremony of the opening

At the exhibition

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