A rare Early Enamelled Arita Ko-Kutani moulded porcelain dish showcasing Nami-Chidori (Waves & Plover design) depicting a steadfast Plover on a rocky outcrop amongst crashing waves, its mate circling above
Arita kiln, Early Enamelled ware, Ko Kutani type, Kusunokidani kiln, Hizen province, Japan, early Edo period, circa 1650
MARK
An underglaze cobalt blue 'fuku' mark within double square.
MEASUREMENTS
12.2 cm long x 2.2 cm high
CONDITION
In very good condition for this very early and rare example, with several very small areas to the inner rim edge where the glaze had pulled back during firing at 3 o'clock, 4:30, 5 o'clock, 10 o'clock (filled with an early kintsugi) and 11 o'clock (filled with an early kintsugi).
DESCRIPTION
The shallow quadrangular form with slightly flared, gently lobed corners and an everted rim edged with a classic iron-brown enamel glaze (fuchi-beni).
The central rectangular medallion features an offset, asymmetric coastal vignette finely painted against a bright-white porcelain ground featuring two minimalist, expressively brushed plovers (chidori) captured in motion. One bird is rendered in flight using deep manganese-purple and cobalt-blue enamel highlights, while the second stands poised on a nearby promontory, washed in a light yellow enamel. A dynamic expanse of cresting, stylized ocean waves (nami) occupies the foreground, detailed with iron-red concentric undulating linework. The shorebird stands on deep cobalt-blue rocky formations that emerge directly out of the roiling red surf.
True to the bold, asymmetric aesthetic defining the gosai (five-color) Ko-Kutani idiom, the border is split into two dramatically contrasting design zones: geometric lattice in the upper and left quadrants are framed by an interlocking diaper grid or cross-diagonal diamond pattern (yomodasuki), while the lower and right margins soften the composition with fluid green scrollwork (karakusa) intertwined with stylized purple Peony or Camellia blossoms, showing loose, painterly brushwork.
The composition seamlessly balances native Japanese seasonal poetry—the pairing of nami-chidori (plovers and waves), a classic motif symbolizing perseverance through immense difficulties—with bold, innovative geometric framing.
The reverse with four underglaze blue arabesques.
STORAGE
With a traditional Japanese paulownia wood tomobako storage box and silk ribbon.
An early Arita Ko-Kutani moulded 'Plover & Waves dish', Kusunokidani kiln c1650
PRICE UPON REQUEST
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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
This rare dish is a definitive example of early Edo-period Ko-Kutani style overglaze enamelware, produced around 1650. Famous identical examples of this specific composition are preserved in prestigious institutional collections, including the MOA Museum of Art in Atami and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C. (catalogue number F1907.531).