The University of San Carlos Museum will present to the public for the first time its collection of fine colorful Japanese ceramics on Thursday, December 14, at its Changing Exhibitions Gallery starting at 10:30 in the morning.

Entitled, “Iro-e: The Beauty of Japanese Polychrome Imari” the exhibition features nearly 200 pieces ranging from saucers and bowls to extremely large platters that have been collected by the museum over the last three years. It also features the collections of Ferdinand V. Azcarraga, Radcliff Estrada and the museum’s head curator, Dr. J. Eleazar R. Bersales. The ceramics to be exhibited date from the later Edo to the Late Showa Period, covering a period of 200 years or between 1780 and 1980.

This is the second exhibition of Japanese ceramics at the museum. The first one, “Sometsuke: Rhapsody in Blue and White Japanese Ceramics From Late Edo to Early Showa, 1800-1940,” was also held at the same gallery, from May 20 to November 20, 2017.

Imari, located in the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, lends its name to porcelain and stoneware ceramics produced in Arita, some 30 kilometers away, because it was at its port that these pieces left Japan for the foreign markets starting in the 1650s.

The exhibition, open to the general public during school days, is part of the museum’s continuing celebrations marking its 50th anniversary this year.

Tags: Museum, Exhibition