A Small 17th Century Kakiemon Porcelain Bowl.

A Small 17th Century Kakiemon Porcelain Bowl, Kakiemon Kilns, c.1670-1690. This small Kakiemon porcelain bowl has a flaring body with an everted folate rim. The Nigoshide body has a clear glaze with a subtle hint of blue-green. The rather restrained flowering design to the side is of a flowing branch with a flowering chrysanthemum. The leaves are in a pale translucent green, with one part of a leaf bend back on itself that is yellowing. Another leaf is depicted in a thick blue glaze. The black and the iron red colours are flat against the porcelain surface. The interior of the foliate rim has two green flower-heads facing one another, with a third asymmetrically placed to the well of the bowl. There is a mark where the painter has inadvertently touched the interior with a wet brush with iron-red paint. The shallow foot shows some fine grit where it stood in grit that was used to support the bowl in the glaze firing.

Kakiemon Porcelain

While there is much debate about what was actually made at the Kakiemon kilns, and was made at Arita, it seems clear that the Nigoshide body was exclusively used at Kakiemon. There has been allot of Japanese research undertaken at the Kakiemon kilns, and fragments of porcelain as well as moulds have been recovered from the kiln sites, unfortunately I have only found this information in Japanese books (in Japanese).  Nigoshide refers to a fine milky-white porcelain body that glows with a warm tint, in Japan it is said to be reminiscent of rice-water. While white porcelain usually sports a blue tint, Nigoshide porcelain has a soft milky-white appearance. Nigoshide was invented in the 1670s as the perfect porcelain body for complimenting the brilliant polychrome overglaze enamel colours created at Kakiemon. It is notable that the Kakiemon enamel decorated pieces with underglaze blue do not use the Nigoshide body, yet fragments of this type have been recovered from the Kakiemon kiln sits. The main period of production of Kakiemon Nigoshide ware was from about 1670 to 1690. Due to lack of the right materials and economic cutbacks, Nigoshide porcelain went out of production by the mid-18th century, however there was a notable decline in production from around 1690.

Kakiemon decoration is usually of high quality, often delicate and with well-balanced asymmetric designs. The designs were normally quite sparse emphasizing the. 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 in the West. 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 so-called `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, breaking open the pot. Banded-Hedges were a formal device within Japanese traditional gardens, referred as brushwood hedges. Other elements incorporated in the 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.

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