Sold Ceramics - Sold Japanese Blue and White wares 17th Century - Dishes - Page 2

Object 2011506

Dish

Japan

1670-1700

Height 60 mm (2.36 inch), diameter of rim 360 mm (14.17 inch), diameter of footring 180 mm (7.09 inch), weight 1.647 grams (58.10 ounce (oz.))

Exhibited: The Asian Galleries Reinmagined - Color Across Asia held from 21 December 2016 to 13 May 2018 at the Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chaphil Hill, The United States of America, Object Guide no. 28.

Dish on footring, flat rim. On the base five spur-marks. Decorated in underglaze blue with flowering chrysanthemums growing from behind a fence and flowering peonies growing from pierced rockwork enclosed by a triple concentric band. On the rim a border of large-scale karakusa (spiky lotus) design with flowers. The reverse is undecorated.

In Japan porcelain is being produced since c.1600. Due to the internal conflicts in China during the second half of the 17th century kilns were destroyed, the porcelain production staggered and supply routes were cut off. In order to keep up with the ever growing demand for porcelain from the homeland the VOC, switched to Decima, Japan. Since 1641 a Dutch trading post was based on this artificial Island in the Bay of Nagasaki. With expanding Japanese production due to Dutch demand the decorative elements the designs and the more freely way in which they were applied by the porcelain decorators became more Japanese. It marked a clear change from the traditional Japanese interpretation of Chinese kraak designs. The powerful centre design and continuous karakusa scroll (kara means Chinese, kusa means grass) on this specific dish are good examples of that change. (Jörg 2003/1, p.260)

Shards of a similar decorated dish were excavated from the wreck of the Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg that ran aground and sunk in 1745 less than a kilometre short of her home port.

For identically decorated dishes, please see;

For dishes with identical karakusa decorated rims, please see;

Condition: Perfect.

References:

Lunsingh Scheurleer 1971, cat. 34

Lunsingh Scheurleer 1977, cat. 253

Wästefelt et al. 1991, p.59

Suchomel 1997, cat. 23

Impey 2002, cat. 129

Jörg 2002/2, cat. 123

Jörg 2003/1, p.260 & cat. 138

Price: Sold.