Arita Porcelain Dish Meijin Karakusa 18th Century (item #551671)

Japanese and Chinese antiques and art from B & C

Arita Porcelain Dish Meijin Karakusa 18th Century

browse these categories for related items...
All Items: Antiques:Regional Art:Asian:Japanese:Porcelain: Pre 1837 VR: item # 551671

Please refer to our stock # 2B-800 when inquiring.

Click to view additional online photographs

B & C Antiques
P. O. Box 291
Derby, CT 06418
203-929-7312

Guest Book

$330

Arita Porcelain Dish Meijin Karakusa 18th Century

This classic early Japanese blue and white ko Imari sometsuke (blue and white porcelain) dish with scalloped edge is decorated with a handpainted “meijin karakusa” design around a central medallion of shochikubai (pine, plum and bamboo). Late 18th /early 19th century. The meijin karakusa pattern, which is one variation of the scrolling vine pattern, is in the form of delicate denticulate leaves and little m-shaped curls. This is one of the many scrolling vine patterns which appear on domestic market blue and white Arita and Imari wares. This decorative style, with its formal white ring between the broad border and the central round medallion, developed by 1750 and continued through the early 19th century. (See Figure 17 in “The Lost Century: Japanese Arita Porcelain 1720-1820 in Britain” by noted authority Irene Finch.) The exterior is decorated with underglaze cobalt designs of tako-karakusa (octopus vine), and there is an apocryphal six-character mark of Chenghua (a Chinese emperor in the Ming Dynasty who set very high porcelain standards) on the foot painted in underglaze blue. Three blue lines encircle the foot ring.

Blue and white sometsuke porcelains with a karakusa designs are examples of wares made for the domestic Japanese market, and they are prized by Japanese collectors. Arita is a town on the island of Kyushu which has been a center of Japanese porcelain production since the seventeenth century. With Arita blue and whites, the blue is produced from a cobalt or indigo pigment and is painted straight onto the biscuit, after which the piece is glazed and fired. Ceramics for everyday use were made at the same kilns that were producing highly ornate, purely decorative wares primarily for export. Condition is excellent, with only a few tiny and shallow glaze frits under the rim which occurred in the kiln during firing. Dimensions: 8” (20.2 cm) diameter, 1 1/8” (3cm) high.