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
PRICE UPON REQUEST
For more information, please contact
BARASET HOUSE FINE ART
416 666 6295
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Literature:
See Oliver Impey & Christian Jorg "Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and Its Impact in Europe; The MacDonald Collection" (The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, 2009), for an almost identical pair of bijin, museum number G05.12.25.1 and G05.12.25.2.
See Christie's (London) 'Japanese Works of Art' 7 & 8 March 1989, lot 321, for the cataloguing of the present pair. The original Christie's catalogue is provided with these figures.
Comparable examples
One other known example of the present pair of very early Kakiemon bijin figures is in the collection of The Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (Toronto); Macdonald Collection of Japanese Porcelain (Toronto); purchased from Miranda Clarke/Roger Keverne Ltd. (London); formerly with Spink & Son (London, UK); sold Christie’s (London) Fine Japanese Works of Art, 28 October 1987, lot 68.
The enamelled decoration on the present pair of bijin figures - particularly in the stylized fabric folds and enamel colouration - is directly comparable to the important documentary Kakiemon model of 'An Immortal on a Tortoise' c1660-1665, of which four examples are known today. This early enamelled model is invaluable in the dating of early Kakiemon style wares and figures. As Oliver Impey notes in the catalogue 'Porcelain For Palaces' (1990), the Dutch East India Company shipping documents record that the Nieuwenhoven was sent to Holland from Batavia in 1665 bearing 19,229 pieces of porcelain from a cargo brought from Japan in the Amerongen. Among these pieces were several Japanese figures including "295 small statuettes on tortoises" and “310 small statuettes”. This securely establishes that the 'Immoral on a Tortoise model’ was made at least as early as 1664.
One of the four known 'Immoral on a Tortoise model’ sold at Christie’s (London) ‘Japanese Art & Design' 11 May 2011, lot 104 as “A Rare Kakiemon Model of an Immortal on a Tortoise circa 1660-70”. This particular example boasts provenance from The Earls of Lauderdale and was likely the same model catalogued in the Duchess of Lauderdale's closet at Ham House, Surrey, in the 17th century.
Upon comparing the freestyled enamelling of the garment folds on both the Lauderdale ‘Immortal on a Tortoise’ model and the present pair of bijin figures, it is immediately evident that the stylistically painted folds enhanced in green, red and blue enamel and picked out with black detailing are directly comparable. The similarities in the thick bubbling black enamel on the hair of both models, as well as the melting effect of the soft white glaze on the contoured facial features and hands are clear, establishing a very similar enamelled palette, paste, glaze and overall technique between the models.
Given these similarities and therefore equally early dating, it is highly plausible that the present pair of bijins may have been among the “310 small statuettes” brought from Japan aboard the Amerongen in 1665 alongside the "295 small statuettes on tortoises".
Another example of the 'Immoral on a Tortoise model’ exists in the celebrated and documentary collection of Burghley House (Lincolnshire, UK). As noted by Oliver Impey the 1688 Inventory taken at Burghley House for the Earl of Exeter including numerous pieces of early Japanese porcelain and figural models making “those pieces, the earliest recorded Japanese porcelains in Europe, the earliest examples where we can confidently equate a seventeenth century description with a specific extant object". (Impey, O. 'Japanese Porcelain at Burghley House', p.117) Also at Burghley House, and stylistically comparable to the present pair of bijin figures are the “2 figures with Juggs att theire backs”. These early Kakiemon figures measuring 14 cm in height were located in the fifth Earl of Exeter's Dressing Room in the 1688 Inventory and remain in the house to this day. They also bear similar enamelling techniques depicting the folds of the figures garments, though appear to be perhaps of very slightly later date to the ‘Immortal on a Tortoise’ model and the present pair of bijin figures.
A slightly later variation of the present model of bijin appeared at Bonham’s (London) 18 March 2003 from the Samuel Stillman Osgood Collection, lot 236 “An extremely rare Kakiemon figure of a bijin”, which is clearly based on the present model of bijin, though likely dating to circa 1670-90. Another of this model in the Macdonald Collection as promised gift to the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (Toronto) museum collection number T15.2.55 and dated circa 1680.
Another slightly later variation of the present figure of bijin appears raised upon a base alongside a small child, enamelled in a more elaborate and profuse pattern, though very likely based on the present earlier figural moulds. An example of this variation, which stands at 18cm in height due to the added base, appeared at Wooley & Wallis (Wiltshire, UK) 'Japanese Works of Art' 14 November 2018, lot 1136, called "A Rare Japanese Kakiemon figural group".
References:
Bonham’s (London) Samuel Stillman Osgood Collection, 18 March 2003.
Christie’s (London) Fine Japanese Works of Art, 28 October 1987.
Christie’s (London) Japanese Works of Art, 6 & 7 March 1989.
Christie’s (London) Japanese Art & Design, 11 May 2011.
Impey, Oliver & Christian Jörg. Dragons, Tigers & Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe: The Macdonald Collection (Gardiner Museum: Douglas & McIntyre, 2009).
Impey, Oliver. Japanese Export Porcelain: Catalogue of the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Amsterdam 2002).
Impey, Oliver. Japanese Porcelain at Burghley House: The Inventory of 1688 and the Sale of 1888, Metropolitan Museum Journal 37 (2002).
Impey, Oliver. Porcelain for Palaces: The Fashion for Japan in Europe, 1650-1750 (London, 1990).
Strober, Eva. “Two Kakiemon bijin: the Erotic Appeal of Robes & Hairstyles” (Princessehof, 2017).
Tanner, Culpepper. “An Inventory of the Goods in Burghley House belonging to the Right Honble John Earl of Exeter and Ann Countesse of Exeter Take August 21th 1688” MS, Burghley House. Transcribed by Jon Culverhouse, Oliver Impey and Mimi Morris.
Van den Berg, Eline. “A Pair of Kakiemon bijin at the Princessehof” (Princessehof, 2017).
Volker, T. The Japanese Porcelain Trade of the Dutch East India Company after 1683 ‘Mededelingen van het Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden’
Wooley & Wallis (Wiltshire, UK) 'Japanese Works of Art' 14 November 2018.
COMPARABLE EXAMPLES
A pair of identical dishes, attributed to the Nakashirakawa kiln are found in the Toguri Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan), described as follows: "Dishes, decorated with snowed brushwood fence design in underglaze blue, Edo period, mid 17th century; decorated with a scene of snow accumulated atop and around a brushwood fence. The design is positioned off-centre, to the lower right, and the remaining space is filled with usurui, 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 feel. A fragment with the same design was excavated from the Nakashirakawa kiln site. The underside decorated with a design of ivy vines. Within the foot there is a mark, as well as three spur marks from the kiln supports."
Another identical dish, attributed to the Shimoshirakawa kiln is found at the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts (Tokyo, Japan), donated by Masayuki Yamamoto, and described as follows: "A dish wish banded hedges in snow on blue ground, blue and white porcelain attributed to Shimoshirakawa kiln, Shoki-Imari ware 1610-1660". Illustrated in Nezu Institute of Art Imari and Nabeshima ware (Tokyo, 1998) no. 23.
Another identical dish covered in soft, pale ruyi (lapis lazuli) glaze is found in the Shibata Collection at the Kyushu Ceramic Museum, illustrated in Complete Catalogue of Shibata Collection (2019) no. 1217.
A very similar dish covered in deep ruyi (lapis lazuli) glaze is found in the Shibata Collection at the Kyushu Ceramic Museum, illustrated in Complete Catalogue of Shibata Collection (2019) no. 452.