17th Century Japanese Moulded Blue and White Porcelain Dish

A Japanese Blue and White Porcelain Dish of Ko-Kuntani Type, Arita Kilns, Kanbun 寛文 (1663–1673) or Enpô 延宝 era (1673 – 1681). The center is painted in a vibrant blue with two cranes, perhaps red-crowned cranes, in a landscape with bamboo. The Red-crowned Crane, Grus Japonensis, also called the Japanese Crane or Manchurian Crane, is a large crane and is now one of the rarest of all cranes. The estimated population of the species is only 1,500 in the wild. Red-crowned Cranes breed in large wetlands in temperate East Asia and winter along rivers and in coastal and freshwater marshes in Japan, China, and the Korean Peninsula. In Japan, this crane is known as the Tancho. This 17th century Japanese dish six bas-relief Ruyi shaped panels. Clockwise from the top, two cranes, section of a pine tree, section of bamboo, Japanese spiritual turtle, section of a prunus branch with flowers, a leaf with ribbon. The base has a large seal-mark with spur-mark, there are two concentric rings. The glaze has a pale blue-green tint and as is common with the Ko-Kutani type the glaze is evenly crazed to the front and back.

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