Outstanding Kinrande Porcelains in Japanese Collections

Kinrande (金襴手) refers to a Chinese porcelain known as “gold brocade type,” which was highly prized by Japanese tea masters and collectors. Today, many fine examples of this type of ware are found in private Japanese collections. This book remains the only important English-language work on this porcelain type.

These Chinese wares typically had their exterior surface covered with a finely drawn gold decoration on a red background. They were produced beginning in the Jiajing (1521 to 1567) and the Wanli (1563 to 1620) periods of the Ming Dynasty and were intended primarily for export to the Japanese market. The ware tended to be of very fine quality with a thin glaze and often with a floral pattern that was generally easy to recognize because of a distinctive coral-red ground enamel with the gold leaf decoration. They were made using a very labor-intensive process and therefore were quite expensive to acquire.

Outside of Japan, the largest number of Kinrande pieces are found in the Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul. European and American collectors do not seem to have been interested in acquiring Kinrande, and in China only a few pieces are known to have survived.