ARITA c.1670 – 1690 Japanese Export Porcelain Decorated in Holland
A 17th Century Japanese Porcelain Square Bottle, Arita Kilns c.1670-1690. Decorated in the Kakiemon Style in Holland c.1720-1730. The Scene Shows Birds, Chrysanthemum, Every Day Objects and `Banded Hedges`.
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- Condition
- One panel has a long firing crack, the porcelain is depressed and the fine crack is in the depression caused while the piece was fired.
- Size
- Height : 16.5 cm (6 1/2 inches)
- Provenance
- One of a pair of bottles bought from James Norbury, Portobello Road 23rd January 1996. The Helen Espir Collection of European Decorated Chinese Export Porcelain : "a member of the Oriental Ceramic Society and collector, with her husband. Having made a typical collection of Song and provincial Ming blue and white, they decided to concentrate on what used to be called `clobbered` porcelain. She is the author of the standard work on the subject, European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain,2005, the first to examine the work of European decorators on Chinese porcelain throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on enamellers in Holland, Germany and England. She has learned Chinese." From Provenance ; Collectors, Dealers & Scholars : Chinese Ceramics in Britain & America (Roy Davids, Dominic Jellinek, Privately Printed, 2011. ISBN 978-0-9570148-0-0).
- Stock number
- 23660
- References
- Bottles of this form occur in blue and white Japanese porcelain as well as enamel decorated. There were also, rather like other Japanese forms such as `apothecary bottles` quite a number of these square bottles that arrived in Holland in the white. Other early Dutch decorated bottles of this form can be seen in : Japanese Export Porcelain, Catalogue of the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Oliver Impey, Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam, 2002) page 182, plates 285, 286, 287. Published : European Decoration on Oriental Porcelain 1700 - 1830 (Helen Espir, Jorge Welsh Books, 2005) page105, plate 39.
Photos
Information
Kakiemon Porcelain :
Kakiemon decoration is usually of high quality, often delicate and with well-balanced asymmetric designs. The designs were normally quite sparse emphasizing the fine white porcelain body known in Japan as Nigoshide (milky white). The opaque white milky Nigoshide body was used on the finest pieces, it appears that it was reserved for fine quality enamelled decoration. Kakiemon porcelain was decorated with a great variety of imaginative designs which include elements such as the `banded hedge`, `flying squirrel`, and the `Quail and Millet` design. The `Three Friends of Winter` were also a very popular group of designs, other subject taken from nature include flowers (especially the chrysanthemum, the national flower of Japan) as well as birds and rock-work. Figural subjects such as the `Hob in the Well` were also popular. This design illustrates a Chinese folk tale where a sage saves his friend who has fallen into a large fish-bowl by throwing stones at it, braking open the pot. Banded-Hedges were a formal device within Japanese traditional gardens, they were often incorporated in designs, includes `The Three Friends of Winter` (Pine, Bamboo and Prunus). These three plants signify perseverance, as neither the pine nor the bamboo shed their leaves in winter and the plumb (Prunus) flowers at the very end of the winter, heralding the arrival of spring.
Hō-ō Bird / Ho-Ho Bird :
The Japanese Ho-o bird is type of auspicious phoenix and is similar to the Chinese Fenghuang. the Hō-ō appears only in peaceful and prosperous times (nesting, it is said, in paulownia trees), and hides itself when there is trouble. As the herald of a new age, the Hō-ō descends from heaven to earth to do good deeds, and then it returns to its celestial abode to await a new era. It is both a symbol of peace (when the bird appears) and a symbol of disharmony (when the bird disappears). The Ho-o Bird appears frequently in Japanese porcelain of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, especially in Kakiemon wares. Ho-Ho is often used when referring to English porcelain versions of these Kakiemon designs.