Nabeshima Ware, Okawachi, Hizen Province, Edo period (late 17th-early 18th century)

Collectors have long appreciated the flawless glaze and stunning designs of Nabeshima-type porcelains. There are more than 100 examples in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, many on exhibition in the 2015 exhibition “Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and the Met.” Americans who honeymooned in Japan in the late nineteenth century played a major role in augmenting the Met’s collections. Charles Stewart Smith (1832–1909), a trustee of the Met, was involved in the dry goods business and primarily collected European paintings. While on honeymoon with his third wife in Japan in 1892, he acquired Japanese ceramics from the British collector Captain Frank Brinkley (1841–1912) and shipped more than 400 pieces directly to the museum in 1893. Valentine Everit Macy (1871–1930), a New York industrialist and philanthropist, who was Commissioner of Parks, and his wife, Edith Carpenter Macy (1869–1925), also collected Japanese ceramics on their Japan honeymoon in 1896. These were subsequently given to the Met in the early 1920s.
For similar examples, see: Hayashiya Seizo, ed., Nabeshima, vol. 10 of Nihon no Toji (Japanese ceramics), (Tokyo, 1988), no. 209; Nagatake Takeshi and Yabe Yoshiaki et. al., Iro Nabeshima: Nabeshima-han yoseki hakkutsu kinen (Fukuoka, 1982), p. 118.