Produced mainly at the Seto kilns in Aichi Prefecture, oil plates were special flat plates with a unique perpendicular 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.

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. Some, such as this plate, were also further decorated with the copper green Oribe glaze. This type of oil plate is known as a “katagake” (“shoulder glazing”), with the thick green glaze on the top part of the plate and the brown tetsu-e pictures on the bottom. Andon plates with green Oribe glaze were produced mainly in Akatsu Village, which made pottery for and was protected by the Owari clan.

The fascination of aburazara for the collectors of Japanese folk art lies in their 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 oil plates, including Figure 6, which is similar in style to this one.