The Gardiner Museum is open seven days a week. Explore our permanent collection, discover special exhibitions, get hands-on with clay in our studios, dine, shop, and more.
Enter an immersive world created by Montreal-based artist Karine Giboulo, brought to life by over 500 miniature polymer clay figures that tell stories about our most urgent social issues, from the pandemic to the climate crisis. It will delight visitors of all ages!
Registration for our popular March Break camps opens to Gardiner Friends on January 23 and to the general public on January 25. From March 13 - 17, kids and teens can explore the Museum and get creative with clay in our pottery studios!
Experience the Gardiner's world-renowned collection, in person and online. From Chinese porcelain to contemporary Canadian ceramics, discover the people and histories behind the objects.
Everyone can love clay! Become a Gardiner Friend and enjoy the benefits, including unlimited admission, advanced clay class registration, invitations to exhibition previews and special events, discounts on lectures and classes, and more.
When Chinese trade in porcelain became disrupted in the mid-seventeenth century following the fall of the Ming Dynasty, the Dutch East India Company turned to Japan, where it had an exclusive foreign monopoly on trade. The Japanese began making porcelain at Arita sometime around 1620. The earliest wares were decorated in underglaze blue and are known as Shoko-Imari. Japanese potters soon became masters of an exceptionally fine white body having discovered naturally mixed deposits of porcelain clay, with decorations in both underglaze blue and a distinctive but limited range of overglaze enamel colours. Different styles of decoration are given different names. Ko-Kutani emerged in the late 1640s for the domestic market, and is characterized by bold designs and vivid colours. This was followed in the 1660s by the Kakiemon style, with more transluscent colours and a tendency to use asymetrical designs, while the Imari style has a darker palette and is often enriched with gilding.
Kakiemon and Imari porcelain became immensely popular in Europe. Most eighteenth-century and many nineteenth-century European porcelain manufactories, as well as makers of faïence, copied the forms and designs of Japanese porcelain. The William and Molly Anne Macdonald Collection of Japanese Porcelain and Its Influence is one of the great specialized collections at the Gardiner Museum.
1. Figure of a Courtesan (detail), Japan, Arita, c.1680-1700, The Macdonald Collection, G07.18.17
2. Figure of a Courtesan (detail), Japan, Arita, c.1680-1700, The Macdonald Collection, G07.18.17
3. Hulu (Double-gourd) Vase (detail), China, Jingdezhen, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), The Anne Gross Collection, G15.7.1
4. Roof Sculpture of Equestrian Figure, China, Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Collection of Ann Walker Bell, G10.4.1