Zetterquist Galleries

Nabeshima Plate with Polychrome Decoration

Edo Period, 1690-1740 Japan

Diameter: 20.5cm

A porcelain plate with slightly flared mouth-rim sitting on a straight raised foot. The interior is decorated with a polychrome depiction of two jars in a basket with branches of camellias and narcissus in underglaze blue with overglaze enameled red, yellow and green. The rim is decorated with a band of interlocking ruyi clouds. The back is decorated with coins tied with tassels and the raised foot-rim with a comb-tooth decoration. With a fitted wooden box.

Nabeshima ware was originally produced in Hizen Province, )Now Saga Prefecture), as tribute from the Feudal Lord Nabeshima to the Shogun in Edo. They represented the highest level of techinical and artistic achievement in Japanese porcelain of the time.

Matching pieces have been published in “Les Cadeaux au Shogun; Porcelaine Precieuse des Seigneurs de Nabeshima” Asahi Shinbun 1997, pl. 79. Also in “Nabeshima; From Earliest to Latest Periods” Tokyo, 2011. pl. 92. Imazaizumi Motosuke, “Nabeshima, Famous Ceramics of Japan 1” Kodansha 1981, Pl. 37. and “Nabeshima to Matsugatani” Yuzankaku, Tokoy 1969. pl. 115.

A piece with the same decoration sold at Christie’s, NY in March, 2000.

PROVENANCE
From a private Japanese collection

Zetterquist Galleries

Large Koryo Celadon Inlaid Tile

Koryo Dynasty, 12th c. Korea

Width: 31.7cm x Height 22.8cm

A thin stoneware rectangular tile with a floral and bird decoration inlaid with white slip and iron oxide black details. The piece has a long crack, from top to bottom, with an old lacquer repair.

Koryo Dynasty inlaid celadon tiles are exceedingly rare outside of Korea. They are almost exclusively found in Buddhist temple excavations, indicating that their use was reserved for this purpose. They are often found cracked due to their extreme thinness.

In a wood and glass viewing case.

The most similar example is in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, acquired in 1933. Another is in the Cleveland Museum of Art since 1918. The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka has a smaller example published in their 1992 “An Introduction to Koryo Celadon”, pl.80. A fourth example from the Korean National Museum is published in “Sekai Touji Zenshu”, Shogakukan Tokyo, 1978 Vol. 18, pl. 147.

PROVENANCE
From a private Japanese collection

Zetterquist Galleries

Oribe Kutsugata Tea Bowl “Yama no Ha”

Late Momoyama - Early Edo Period, early 17th c. Japan

Diameter: 14 cm

A “Kutsugata” (shoe-shaped) stoneware teabowl covered with a rich, unctuous black glaze. The flattened front of the bowl is reserved in a finely crackled white slip with a clumping of seven circles encasing a geometric hourglass formed of two triangles joined at their points. (This design is based on “chikiri”; winding the warp on a loom). The glaze stops well short of the foot, a flattened donut shape, slightly off center on the broadly conical bottom. The unglazed bottom reveals of brown stoneware clay body. The bottom of the bowl has been inscribed in dark red by the 13th generation Omotesenke tea master Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901-1979), who has also inscribed the box, “Yama no Ha” (Mountain’s Edge)

A similar piece, but with two larger ishidatami roundel decorations, is published in “Turning Point; Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan”. Metropoitan Museum of Art - Yale University Press 2003. Pl. 53

PROVENANCE
Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901 - 1979)
Private Japanese Collection

Zetterquist Galleries

A Large Kokutani Style Charger

Early Edo Period, Second Half of the 17th century, Japan

Diameter: 39cm

A large porcelain charger with five-color enamel decoration in blue, green, red, purple, and amber colors. Floating in a field of scrolling foliate decoration, there a “Military Fan” and cloud-shaped panel, bordered in amber. One is filled entirely with dark green enamel over a dense swastika pattern drawn in black. The other, held up by a purple-hued staff, is split in half, with a black wave pattern under green, and a blue and amber basket weave pattern. In the upper right quadrant, there is a square window, also outlined in amber, framing a delicately painted scene of a Chinese-style literati strolling in a white ground with a sheathed harp under his arm. To his right behind him are rocky outcrops colored purple, green, blue and amber. A tree with red leaves and amber trunk juts towards the center of the landscape, while green bushes sprout underneath. Cloud depictions float in the top of the field. Amber colored folding screens float in the background. The rim of the plate is glazed in a dark brownish purple color, to approximate a bronze rim. The backside is decorated with scrolling lotus flowers around the exterior walls, and double blue lines just above the foot. The center of the foot-well has a squared green seal set within double blue circles, and with indistinguishable black characters, (possibly mimicking the characters for “Fuku”, meaning “affluent longevity”. Ko-Kutani style porcelains are now believed to have been produced in Hizen, (Arita), for both export and domestic use. They represent a uniquely Japanese compositional style influenced by both painting and textiles. Condition: Interior with some surface scratching and small areas of enamel loss. Small hairline crack (about 6mm) at rim. Exterior with some surface scratching and small area of enamel loss.

This large, vividly decorated example is nearly identical, both in size and decoration, to an example in the Matsuoka Bijutsukan, which is published in their 1991 catalog “Masterpieces of Asian Ceramics”, pl. 154. Another example of similar size and decorative elements, but in different arrangement, is published in Jintsu Seigando’s 1989 exhibition catalog of Ko-Kutani type wares, pg. 16.