Pottery and Porcelain

Important Cultural Property
"Three-footed dish with design of pine tree in underglaze cobalt blue, Nabeshima ware"


(Click on the photograph for a larger image.)

Height: 7.6 Diameter(mouth, foot): 29.3, 19.9@@Edo period

This shallow dish has rather thin walls and is supported by three short legs or feet fashioned in the shape of leaves. The design, consisting of an abstracted pine tree that twists and turns as it approaches the rim, is concentrated away from the center, which has been left white. The stylized pattern denoting the pine needles was created by leaving narrow lines of white to indicate negative spaces. The needles themselves are rendered in blue, as is the trunk, a slight difference in the shade of the glaze distinguishing one from the other. The smooth, uniform application of the light blue glaze on the trunk and branches indicates fine workmanship. Decorating the exterior of the dish are designs of what appear to magnolias in the "broken branch" style; these motifs are placed above each of the three legs. A bull's-eye pattern, and as well as spur marks, evidence of stacking in the kiln, are visible on the bottom of the dish. The clay used for the porcelain body was pure white and of very high quality.


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