In the late Edo period, the cut glass known as Edo-kiriko and Satsuma-kiriko, glittering in a rainbow of colors, bloomed in Japan. Its inspiration was transparent, colorless cut glass imported from the West, which the Japanese had named "giyaman"-from the Portuguese word for "diamond"-for its elegant crystalline beauty. Aspiring to emulate those exotic wares, the domain of Satsuma, in what is now Kagoshima, devoted great energy to producing Satsuma-kiriko. The result was a captivating harmony between its many colors and wide range of motifs.
Glass production began in Satsuma in 1846, during the reign of its twenty-seventh daimyo, Shimazu Narioki, and advanced dramatically during the brief reign of his son Nariakira. Nariakira, a cosmopolitan thinker, familiar from childhood with books from Europe, maintained close ties with the leading Japanese scholars of the Western learning (rangakusha) of his day. He actively incorporated aspects of foreign culture in his plans for Satsuma and particularly in its cut glass. The powerful straight cuts found in English glass, the elegant curves of Bohemian glass-the influence of European design is evident in Satsuma-kiriko. Developed as an exclusive product of Satsuma with an eye to the export market, Satsuma-kiriko, as the provenances of many of the surviving examples indicate, was often used as formal gifts for presentation to the Tokugawa and to daimyo clans. Then, however, the bombardment of Kagoshima by the British in 1863 destroyed the glassworks, and the glory that was Satsuma-kiriko soon came to an end.
Satsuma-kiriko described a brief arc from its brilliant emergence in the last dozen years of the Tokugawa shogunate to its extinction in the early years of Meiji. This exhibition recapitulates that history by displaying about 160 examples of Satsuma-kiriko and also attempts to shed light on a new aspect of this splendid glass. While Satsuma-kiriko is strongly associated with vivid colors, it was only recently that the existence of colorless Satsuma glass was confirmed. This exhibition incorporates the results of recent research to provide a glimpse of the wonders of that colorless glass as well. We hope that you will enjoy this opportunity to experience the unique beauty of Satsuma-kiriko, with its fusion of admiration for the West and a characteristically Japanese aesthetic.