Japanese export porcelain in the context of "Hizen Province"

Hirado ware (Japanese: 平戸焼, Hepburn: hirado-yaki) is a type of Japanese porcelain mostly made at kilns at Mikawachi, Sasebo, Nagasaki, and it is therefore also known as Mikawachi ware (三川内焼, Mikawachi-yaki). It was made in the former feudal Hirado Domain, which owned the kilns, and was responsible for establishing and directing their production.

It is known mainly for its sometsuke underglaze cobalt blue and white porcelain, with the amount of blue often low, showing off the detailed modelling and the very fine white colour of the porcelain. This has a finer grain than most Japanese porcelains, allowing fine detail and thin and complicated openwork in forms. It was used for tablewares, but was especially noted for small figures and structured objects such as incense burners and brush rests. It developed supplying the domestic Japanese market in the 18th century, in the gap between the two main periods of Japanese export porcelain, and produced much of the best Japanese porcelain of the late 18th century and early 19th century. When large-scale exports resumed, it had a good share in the trade.

Imari ware (Japanese: 伊万里焼, Hepburn: Imari-yaki) is a Western term for a brightly-coloured style of Arita ware (有田焼, Arita-yaki) Japanese export porcelain made in the area of Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyūshū. They were exported to Europe in large quantities, especially between the second half of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century.

Typically Imari ware (in the English use of the term) is decorated in underglaze blue, with red, gold, black for outlines, and sometimes other colours, added in overglaze. In the most characteristic floral designs most of the surface is coloured, with "a tendency to overdecoration that leads to fussiness". The style was so successful that Chinese and European producers began to copy it. Sometimes the different overglaze styles of Kakiemon and Kutani ware are also grouped under Imari ware.

Household silver or silverware (the silver, the plate, or silver service) includes tableware, cutlery, and other household items made of sterling silver, silver gilt, Britannia silver, or Sheffield plate silver. Silver is sometimes bought in sets or combined to form sets, such as a set of silver candlesticks or a silver tea set.

Historically, silverware was divided into table silver, for eating, and dressing silver for bedrooms and dressing rooms. The grandest form of the latter was the toilet service, typically of 10-30 pieces, often silver-gilt, which was especially a feature of the period from 1650 to about 1780.

Arita ware (Japanese: 有田焼, Hepburn: Arita-yaki) is a broad term for Japanese porcelain made in the area around the town of Arita, in the former Hizen Province, northwestern Kyūshū island. It is also known as Hizen ware (肥前焼, Hizen-yaki) after the wider area of the province. This was the area where the great majority of early Japanese porcelain, especially Japanese export porcelain, was made.

In English usage "Arita ware" was traditionally used for the export wares in blue and white porcelain, mostly copying Chinese styles. The wares with added overglaze colours were called Imari ware or (a sub-group) Kakiemon. It is now recognized that the same kilns often made more than one of these types, and "Arita ware" is more often used as a term for all of them. The brightly coloured Kutani ware is another type that is now recognised as coming from around Arita as well as the Kutani itself, and "Kutani-type" is used as a stylistic description.

Kakiemon (Japanese: 柿右衛門様式, Hepburn: Kakiemon yōshiki) is a style of Japanese porcelain, with overglaze decoration called "enameled" ceramics. It was originally produced at the kilns around Arita, in Japan's Hizen province (today, Saga Prefecture) from the Edo period's mid-17th century onwards. The quality of its decoration was highly prized in the West and widely imitated by major European porcelain manufacturers during the Rococo period.

Kakiemon is a term that generates some confusion, being the name of a family, one or more kilns, and a brightly-coloured overglaze style. The style originated with the family, whose kilns were the main producers of it, but other kilns also made it, and the Kakiemon kilns made other styles. Both the palette and style, and very probably the kiln, were in place by the 1680s. The style is a sub-type of what is called in the West Imari ware, the overglaze coloured variety of the broader grouping Arita ware, dominant in Japanese export porcelain in its first successful period, up to the 1740s.