Sold Ceramics - Sold Ko-Sumetsuke wares early 17th century

Object 2011660

Dish

China

1625-1650

Height 30 mm (1.18 inch), diameter of rim 160 mm (6.30 inch), diameter of footring 84 mm (3.31 inch)

Ko-sometsuke, literally meaning 'old blue-and-white ware'.

Dish on footring with straight sides and a lobbed rim. Decorated in underglaze blue. In the centre a magnolia has been incised into the porcelain, around the rim a border of alternating triangles, on the reverse rim three sprays of flowering branches filled with a ruyi head. Marked on the base with the six-character mark: Da Ming Cheng hua nian zhi, (Made during the Chenghua reign of the Great Ming dynasty (1465-1487)), in a double circle.

The incised pattern is barely discernible to the naked eye unless the ware is held up to the light. The incised recesses have been filled with a transparent glaze to create a flat surface. The Chinese call this technique anhua (hidden decoration). (Emden 2015/1, p.132, cat. 122)

This dish would have been part of a set of five or six for the use in a tea ceremony. (Jörg 1997, p.73)

Condition: A glaze chip and some, what the Japanese call "mushikui" or moth-eaten, tiny rough glaze spots to the lobbed rim, also a firing flaw to the centre, visible on both sides of the dish.

References:

Davison 1994, cat. 1334

Jörg 1997, cat. 61

Emden 2015/1, p.132, cat. 122

Price: Sold.