pieces (okimono), such as figurines of beautiful women (bijin), animals, children and religious subjects. The palette darkened, and there was generous application of raised gold. 1885–1930s The mid-1880s saw the beginning of an export slump for many Japanese goods, including Satsuma ware, linked in part to a depreciation of quality and novelty through mass production. By the 1890s, contemporary Satsuma ware had become generally denigrated by critics and collectors. It was negatively received at Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893, but remained a popular export commodity into the twentieth century, becoming "virtually synonymous with Japanese ceramics" throughout the Meiji period. Satsuma ware continued to be mass-produced through the modern period, though quality declined to the point where it eventually lost interest for consumers. Criticism The response of critics and collectors to mass-produced Satsuma ware was and is overwhelmingly negative. According to art historian Gisela Jahn, "in no other style of ceramics did the Japanese go to such extremes in attempting to appeal to Western tastes, and nowhere else were the detrimental effects of mass production more clearly evident". In an effort to produce inexpensive, popular items, Satsuma ware designs became "over-crowded", "garish", and "glitzy". There was never a domestic demand for these pieces, which were generally viewed as the "betrayal of Japanese tradition". Serious foreign collectors also turned their backs on export works as "crude, chalky pâte, covered with coarsely fissured glaze, in which more often than otherwise an excess of feldspar has produced discoloured deposits that suggest the reverse of technical skill." Types In addition to the nishikide and export ware types, there are various categories of Satsuma ware, each with their own distinct aesthetic. Shiro Satsuma: white-glazed; originally only for use within daimyō's household Kuro Satsuma: black-bodied with dark overglaze Jakatsu: blue, yellow and black glazes run together with white overglaze Sunkoroku Satsuma: older pieces modeled on the Sawankhalok ceramics of thirteenth-century Thailand, decorated with brown geometrical designs Mishima Satsuma: clay with light bluish-grey glaze, with inlaid or impressed geometric patterning filled with white slip overglaze Blue-and-white Satsuma: produced in the first decade of the nineteenth century; large pieces with Chinese-inspired designs, often landscapes Gosu blue Satsuma: produced in limited quantity in Kyoto in the mid-nineteenth century; pieces with over- or under-glaze containing minerals such as cobalt or asbolite, which gives a bluish hue and a more vivid quality to painted images Artists Not all producers of late nineteenth