In the mid to late Edo period, horse-eye plates were one of the standard utilitarian products produced by the Seto kilns. Used for serving food, they appeared in restaurants and inns along the Tokaido Road from Kyoto to Edo, as well as in ordinary homes. Horse-eye plates are the quintessential example of Japanese mingei pottery, and no major Japanese folk art collection would be considered complete without one. They are bold, fresh, powerful and contemporary in feeling.

It is quite rare to find uma-no-me zara in such a large size. See Photo Enlargement 11 to visualize the relative size differential. A more typical horse-eye plate (on the left) and one of similar size to this one (on the right) are illustrated together in Figure 59 in “Quiet Beauty” by Robert Moes which chronicles fifty centuries of Japanese folk ceramics from the world famous Jeffrey Montgomery Collection. The Montgomery Collection is widely considered to be the most important trove of Japanese folk art outside of Japan.

CONDITION is excellent for this type of folk ceramic dish. Due to their long and frequent use, horse-eye plates typically show signs of wear, yet there are only insignificant old rim chips on this one. The unglazed spots in the center ring are marks made by small ceramic points that separated the many plates that were stacked in the kiln during the firing process. This somewhat rough appearance only adds to the plate’s appeal. This uma-no-me zara is darkened by use and age, and it has a wonderful original patina.

The name of this type of Mino ware derives from the textured pattern rouletted onto the clear-glazed portion of its surface, which reminded Japanese of the small, lacquered-steel horizontal scales that were laced together to form a suit of armor. Wooden roulettes were rolled horizontally over the damp form to produce these textures on the lower body of this bottle. Gourd-shaped sake bottles as well as small cups with this distinctive “armor” texture have been excavated from the kiln sites in the former Hirano Village in Mino and from kilns within the former Seto Village in Seto. The “armor” format was one of numerous novelties developed at late Edo-period kilns competing for the popular market.

Double gourd sake bottles like this one are found in several important private and museum collections of Japanese folk ceramics. The Morse collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, includes three such pieces in graduated sizes (Morse 1901: nos. 4291-93), and there is one in the Japanese Collections at the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. (See Figure 91 in “Seto and Mino Ceramics” by Louise Allison Cort.) A similar tokkuri is illustrated in Figure 61 in “Quiet Beauty” by Robert Moes which chronicles fifty centuries of Japanese folk ceramics from the world famous Montgomery Collection. The Montgomery Collection is widely considered to be the most important trove of Japanese folk art outside of Japan.

CONDITION is excellent, with no chips, cracks or restoration. There are some normal minor kiln flaws which are usually seen on old folk ceramics.

Most andon plates feature the design known as “tetsu-e” (“iron pictures”), the freestyle images painted in iron-oxide pigments directly onto the clay, frequently of sparse landscapes or subjects from nature. Artisans drew underlaze pictures directly on the clay with iron pigments made from an iron oxide. Then they poured transparent glaze over the pictures. This plate is an example of Oribe glaze all over the tetsu-e instead of Oribe glazing only on part of the plate, such as a shoulder.

Produced mainly at the Seto kilns in Aichi Prefecture, oil dishes were special circular flat plates with a unique raised perpendicular outer edge. They were placed on the lower level of the andon lantern where they were used to catch oil drippings and soot from the burnt wick or oil feeder above. These plates were in use from the mid-seventeenth century, when andon were first used indoors, until the early 1900’s, when the use of oil lamps and electric lights became widespread.

The fascination of aburazara for the collectors of Japanese folk art lies in their bold painted motifs. Their simple designs always possessed a spontaneous vitality, and the decoration on this plate is large in scale and freely executed. Considered a quintessential example of Japanese ceramic folk art, Seto oil plates are represented in most major collections of mingei or Japanese folk ceramics. See “Andon (Lantern) Plates” by Yamazaki Masumi, the cover article in DARUMA 42 for many wonderful examples of these early oil plates, including Figures 21 and 22, which are similar in style to this one.

CONDITION is quite good for such an early andon plate. There are the fairly typical and expected areas of glaze loss on the rim of the plate and a stable old hairline crack, which are totally consistent with age and extensive usage for a plate of this nature. Very few aburazara survive in perfect condition because they were seen as ordinary everyday utilitarian wares which would ultimately be discarded. Such rough spots actually give these old oil plates more character, enhancing their folk art essence.

These unique “feet” made to hold a Japanese floor screen were called “byobu osae” or “byobu hasami.” The manner in which these foot-weights were used was described by Edward S. Morse in his book “Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings,” originally published in 1885: “When a Japanese screen is unfolded and placed on the floor, various devices are provided to prevent the end panels being swayed by the wind. These devices may be in the shape of some metal figure which acts as a check, or a heavy weight of pottery made in the shape shown in fig. 158, the end of the screen fitting into the slot in the weight.” Foot weights for screens are more typically found in the form of metal mandarin ducks – to find a pair of antique ceramic byobu osae in the shape of rabbits is exceedingly rare.