Ref: U572
Archive item - not for sale
Japanese Arita blue and white tureen and cover, Edo period, late 17th Century, decorated with underglaze blue in the Chinese style with houses and flowering prunus in a landscape setting, the foot with a stylised geometric pattern border, the cover similarly decorated with a landscape scene and border surmounting the finial shaped as a seated shishi knop. ; height: 9 3/4in (25 cm.), diameter: 9 in. (22.8cm.). There is a near example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from the collection of Dr. and Mrs. Roger G. Gerry Collection, Accession Number 2002.447.47a, b, and is illustrated in Brennan Ford, Barbara and Impey, Oliver R., ‘Japanese Art from the Gerry Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,’ plate 38. There is a pair of bowls without covers which also follow a similar design and shape at Nostell Priory House, NT 959620.2. This form of decoration and shape closely follows Chinese export porcelain as the Japanese were also producing designs for the European market. For example, in the Hatcher Wreck, a small covered bowl was discovered which is decorated in a similar landscape scene to the body, see Sheaf, Colin and Kilburn, Richard, ‘The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes’, plate 102, p. 68. However, the seated shishi knop is more unusual. A similar example in the Soame Jenyns collection is on view at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, collection no. J53. For further examples see Kyushu Ceramic Museum, The Shibata Collection (Saga-prefecture, 1991) part 2, p.178, no.516 and The Toguri Museum of Art, Ko-Imari [Old Imari ware] (Tokyo, 1991), p.124, no.267 SOLD
