An exceptionally early Arita Ko-Kutani moulded porcelain dish in the form of a Peach with leaves and stem, painted in the Chinese Shonzui style with underglaze cobalt blue with a naturalistic sprig of flowering cherry blossoms picked out in iron-red and dark-green enamels, flowering peonies in iron-red, three floral roundels and stylized clouds
Arita kiln, Early Enamelled ware, Ko Kutani type or an early enamellers workshop, Hizen province, Japan
early Edo period, circa 1640s
MEASUREMENTS
16.7 cm long x 14.3 cm wide
CONDITION
In excellent original condition with very minor wear to the early enamels.
This very finely moulded dish in the form of a ripe peach with moulded stem and leaves belongs to the earliest examples of overglaze enamels produced in Japan. Dating within the latter half of the 1640s, the early Arita potters embarked on a rapid period of technical innovation in order to replicate the coveted wucai coloured porcelains from China. The use of underglaze cobalt blue on porcelaneous wares was introduced in the 1610s in Japan by Korean potters. The successful firing of iron-red in the 1640s was foundational in the development of overglaze colours, followed by a polychrome palette including green, blue, yellow and puce. This early peach-shaped dish showcases the rapid innovations made with early overglaze pigments fired in low-temperature muffle kilns on the coarse greyish porcelaneous body of early Arita wares. The dish successfully combines a Chinese-inspired sancai (three-color) palette that includes underglaze blue (sometsuke) with overglaze iron-red and green enamels. Initially, the bisque clay was painted with cobalt blue pigment and glazed before being fired in a high-temperature kiln. After painting coloured pigments over the cooled and hardened glaze, the dish was then re-fired in a lower temperature muffle kiln to fuse the overglaze pigments to the surface.
The establishment of overglaze pigments on Japanese porcelain is documented by historical records known as 'The Record of the Beginning of Red Porcelain' held in the Kakiemon family which states that "Kisaburo Kakiemon (the first Kakiemon) sold red porcelain to the shopper of Lord Chikuzen of Kaga in Nagasaki for the first time in June of the year the galleon arrived. 'Galleon' refers to a galleon ship, and it was in the fourth year of Shoho (1647), when a Portuguese galleon, which was forbidden from entering Nagasaki, arrived and caused a commotion, that he sold his first polychrome porcelain to the shopper of Maeda Mitsutaka, the third lord of the Kaga domain and the governor of Chikuzen. This means that by the fourth year of Shoho, he had already perfected polychrome porcelain of a quality high enough to sell to a daimyo family."
This dish offers both a truly delightful form and a window into the early history of Japan's porcelain industry which - in the latter half of the 17th century - dominated the world.
STORAGE
With a traditional Japanese paulownia wood tomobako storage box with an inscribed traditional rice paper cover and silk ribbon.
A very early moulded & enamelled Arita Ko-Kutani type 'Peach' form dish c1640s
PRICE UPON REQUEST
For more information, please contact
BARASET HOUSE FINE ART
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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 similarly decorated example, but of double overlapping leaf form, exists in the Toguri Museum of Art (Japan) and is describes it as Arita ko-Kutani in the Shonzui-style and noting that the "Old Kutani style is broadly divided into three types: Shonzui-de, Gosai-de, and Aode, and this small plate belongs to the Shonzui-de category. Shonzui-de is characterized by its frequent use of geometric patterns, influenced by the Shonzui porcelain fired in the Jingdezhen kilns of China. It uses both underglaze blue and overglaze enamel, and the outlines of the patterns are either red or the blue of the underglaze blue, giving it an overall soft impression" The Toguri example remains together with its original tomobako storage box which bears an inscription dating the dish prior to 1651. It is estimated to date between 1647 and 1650.
Another similarly decorated example, but of double overlapping leaf form, exists in the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art (Toronto, Canada) collection number G25.13.27.