A very rare and highly unusual Arita moulded porcelain cloud-form dish superbly enamelled in a transitional ko-Kutani/Kakiemon style, featuring a pair of egrets wading through crashing waves and protected by a banded rock weir, the reverse with fruiting peach and pomegranate sprigs

Arita kiln, transitional ko-Kutani/Kakiemon workshop, Hizen province, Japan Edo period, Enpō (1673-1681) to Genroku era (1688-1703)

circa 1670-1710

MEASUREMENTS

16.3 cm long x 10.5 cm wide x 2.5cm high

CONDITION

An elegant old kintsugi (gold lacquer) repair to a 4mm hairline extending from the rim at 8 o'clock. The exceptional enamels are in superb condition. 

Description

A highly unusual and attractive early Arita-kiln lobed dish moulded as an organic, cloud-like silhouette, the rim featuring a gently scalloped profile with a fine, iron-red tinted border (fuchibeni), raised on an oval, unglazed footrim. The interior masterfully painted in a brilliant five-colour overglaze enamel palette with gilt highlights, showcasing dynamic, expressionistic brushwork and depicting a dramatic wetland scene featuring a pair of egrets standing together amidst a turbulent expanse of swirling blue and green whirlpools and crashing waves. The fluid energy of the water is brilliantly juxtaposed against a rigid, geometric trellis fence rendered in fine iron-red lines against a white ground to the upper left, rising out of currents. The trellis ajiro-gaki (網代垣) is a type of fence or retaining wall made of heavy woven wickerwork. In the Edo period, these woven structures were backed by rocks and soil along rivers and coastlines to trap earth and control erosion from heavy currents. Here they are executed in overlapping iron-red lattice lines and finely highlighted with gilding. This man-made structure anchors the herons within a rugged, controlled shoreline environment, offering a rigid geometric contrast to the fluid, organic waves.

The reverse of the dish is coated in a soft, milky white glaze showing minor natural pinholes and iron spots. It is delicately painted along the outer lobes with sparse, trailing fruiting branches of pomegranates and peaches outlined in iron-red and filled with light washes of green and blue enamels. The shallow, unglazed oval foot rim reveals the fine, compact clay body with areas of characteristic orange-brown kiln firing oxidation.

STORAGE

With a traditional Japanese paulownia wood tomobako storage box and silk ribbon.