A very fine, rare and large Ai-Kutani dish, the surface covered in a soft ruri (lapis lazuli) glaze and superbly decorated with Yukiwa Shibagaki (snow-laden brushwood fences)
Ko-Kutani usu-ruri type, Nakashirakawa kiln, Arita ware, Hizen province, Japan
Edo Period (mid-17th century), Meireki-Manji period
circa 1655-60
CONDITION
In excellent original condition. An original minor kiln flaw to the rim at 10 o'clock covered with original slip and ruri glaze.
MEASUREMENTS
21.5 cm diameter; 3.0 cm high
The front surface covered in a velvety soft pale lapis lazuli blue glaze known as usu-ruri which creates a soft, dreamlike feel for this calming winter scene illustrating banded brushwood hedges heavily laden with snow in a frosty sky. The underside is loosely decorated with scrolling ivy vines, a finely drawn fuku mark within a double square, and three spur marks. This elegant dish was produced at the historically significant Nakashirakawa kiln site which recent research has revealed to be a crucial location for the development of ceramic innovation in Arita, particularly with their early experimentation of glazes and early overglaze enamels.
Excavated sherds have revealed that the site was used for experiments with low-temperature enamel firing, and is now noted to be of critical importance to the evolution of Kakiemon and other polychrome styles between the 1640s and 1660s. The Nakashirakawa and Shimoshirakawa kilns were within close proximity to the early experimental Kusunokidani kiln of Kakiemon I. Evidence from archaeological sherds confirms that early enamels were used at the Nakashirakawa kiln during the experimental phase of Japanese polychrome porcelain in the early 1640s. Scientific analysis of these early Nakashirakawa sherds reveal an iron-based yellow enamel and an early, experimentally-failed blue-green enamel. According to a 2020 study by Nobuyuki Murakami and Riccardo Montanari, these finds illustrate a frantic period for Arita potters following the expulsion of Europeans in 1639, when potters at Nakashirakawa were attempting to replace imported Jesuit pigments with local materials, successfully creating iron-yellow but struggling to replicate overglaze blue. While Nakashirakawa has long been credited with importance innovations in clay and glaze production, these early enamelled sherd discoveries prove it was also a site of active innovation for overglaze polychrome techniques in the period immediately preceding the rapid development of overglaze enamels by the Kakiemon.
STORAGE
With a traditional Japanese paulownia wood storage box and silk ribbon tie.
A rare ruri Ai-Kutani snow on banded hedges dish, Nakashirakawa kiln c1655-60
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REFERENCES
An identical pair of dishes in the collection of the Toguri Museum of Art (Tokyo) described as "dishes decorated with a scene of snow accumulated atop and around a brushwood fence. The design is positioned off-centre, to the lower right, and remaining space is filled in with usururi, a thin coat of ruri glaze, to create a solid yet soft blue colouration. With the fine detail on the brushwood fence, and the way the snow is expressed through undecorated white space, these dishes have a gentle, dreamy fee. A fragment with the same design was excavated fron the Nakashirakawa kiln site. The undersides of the dishes are decorated with a design of ivy vine. Within the foot of each there is a mark, as well as three spur marks from the kiln supports. These dishes came into the museum's collection as a set of two." (Toguri Museum of Art)
Another identical Nakashirakawa snow-laden fences dish was exhibited at the Imaemon Museum of Ancient Ceramics (Akaemachi, Arita, Japan) at a special exhibition titled "Sometsuke: The Original Colour".
Another identical Nakashirakawa snow-laden fences dish in the Shibata Collection (Kyushu Museum of Ceramic Art). Tomoko Fujiwara of the Kyushu Ceramic Museum provides an eloquent passage on this Snow-laden fences dish Shibagaki Pattern: "The trees and shrubs of the fields and mountains were cut down and made into "shiba" (brushwood), which was used as building material for walls, fences, and roofs, as well as being used as firewood, making it a familiar part of life in Japan in the past. The "shiba-tsuka-mon" (bundle of cut brushwood) is a pattern that often features flowers such as plum blossoms, and is a Japanese pattern not seen in Chinese porcelain. The Meissen porcelain factory incorporated this flowered shibatsuka-mon in the Kakiemon style, and a well-known example is a plate from around 1740 that combines Japanese and Western patterns, with a Polish-Saxon composite coat of arms as the main motif and shibatsuka-mon scattered around it. Brushwood fences are a common feature of country houses and have appeared in literature and picture scrolls since ancient times. In Old Imari porcelain, they are depicted at the base of flowering trees or as enclosures around houses. In particular, brushwood fences are often depicted together with trees, birds perched on them, and flowers, and by changing the types of trees, flowers, and birds and combining them, it is a versatile motif that can be used to create countless patterns. While there are few examples of brushwood fences being depicted as an independent motif, there are examples in Old Imari porcelain that consist solely of brushwood fences covered in snow, as shown in the illustration. Snow-covered brushwood fences are depicted in ukiyo-e prints and picture scrolls as a focal point of winter scenes, and the fact that the brushwood fence dance, performed to the tune of the brushwood fence song "I caught a glimpse of snow-covered sleeves over the brushwood fence, brushwood fence, brushwood fence" was popular around the Meireki period (1655-1658) suggests that this combination of brushwood and snow may have been a convention." [Tomoko Fujiwara, From the Saga Prefectural Kyushu Ceramic Culture Museum Bulletin, Ceramic Kyushu / No. 31 (published in 1995)]