A dish and cup with a stylised suhama, shore-line, rim decorated in somenishikide style with a pair of lively galloping horses in a sansui, water and rock, landscape, with mountains in the background and a stream in the foreground. The dish dates to the late Mid Edo period, and probably the Meiwa era. The design reflects the revival of interest in Japan in the patterns found on Late Ming Chinese porcelain made for the Japanese market and the Tea ceremony. This unusual pattern of a pair of horse...

A porcelain dish from the Nagasaki area, so not strictly “Ko Imari”, meticulously painted with an elaborate Leiwen border and a stylised Chinese style landscape in a light blue gosu. The reverse painted with three Lotus flowers with trailing Acanthus type scrolls in a contrasting dark blue gosu with a seal for the Kameyama kiln. The scroll motif to the reverse indicates a relatively early date of production and later examples do not exhibit the same degree of care or workmanship as the p...

A very fine sometsuke dish of scalloped octalobed form painted with a mon form central motif of a symmetrically arranged pair of leaping carp. Framed by a continuous band of botan karakusa, Peonie lotus scroll, within which are reserves containing, dragons, Ryu, in clouds and a gilt rim, kin-beni. The reverse decorated with hagi-karakusa, vine pattern and a six character mark for the Chinese Emperor Jiajing. The quality of the painting is of the highest standard. The dish would date to the perio...

A very fine sometsuke dish of scalloped octalobed form painted with a mon form central motif of a symmetrically arranged pair of leaping carp. Framed by a continuous band of botan karakusa, Peonie lotus scroll, within which are reserves containing, dragons, Ryu, in clouds and a gilt rim, kin-beni. The reverse decorated with hagi-karakusa, vine pattern and a six character mark for the Chinese Emperor Jiajing. The quality of the painting is of the highest quality. The dish would date to the period...

A very fine sometsuke dish of scalloped octalobed form painted with a mon form central motif of a symmetrically arranged pair of leaping carp. Framed by a continuous band of botan karakusa, Peonie lotus scroll, within which are reserves containing, dragons, Ryu, in clouds and a gilt rim, kin-beni. The reverse decorated with hagi-karakusa, vine pattern and a six character mark for the Chinese Emperor Jiajing. The quality of the painting is of the highest quality. The dish would date to the peri...

A nagazara or long dish dating to the late 18th or early 19th century with a central motif of a Chinese style landscape framed by a pattern of spirals and flower-heads, Asters or Chrysanthemums a deconstructed version of a contemporary Chinese Qing dynasty pattern (see Diana Cargo etc). a staple of the Chinese export trade to South East Asia, produced both at Jingdezhen and at provincial kilns in South China. A design originally based on the popular Kangxi period so-called “Aster pattern”. ...

An Arita rectangular form dish decorated with an elaborate enamelled Lotus arabesque set against a yellow ground with a central reserve with a Chinese style landscape. The reverse painted with waves and landscape elements and a longitudinal nien hao six character mark for the Emperor Chenghua. The dish dates to the late 18th century circa 1770-1800. The lotus with yellow ground immitates contemporary Chinese Imperial porcelain of the Qianlong period. See Shibata Volume 8 no 44 for a similar dish...

An Arita porcelain small bowl with barbed lotus style lobed rim, a namasu, typically used in Japanese cuisine to serve various pickles. Potted in mid 17C transitional Chinese style without a foot-rim as such, but an unglazed ring, kodai. The interior of the bowl painted in ko-sometsuke style. One half painted with Su Shi’s “First Ode to the Red Cliffe”, divided into twelve columns reading from right to left. The stanza is not complete with several columns of characters missing at the end ...

Ko Imari Oranda-jin Hexagonal Hakukaku Mukuzuke c.1800 A deep octagonal bowl, mukuzuke, or choku, decorated with eight panels containing figures of orand-jin Dutchmen in various poses and involved in a number of activities. Some carry canes or cudgels and are perhaps involved in some sort of martial activity, whilst others carry a dove, a chatusbo (tea-jar) and a ruyi sceptre, auspicious objects. The Japanese were particular fascinated with the mysterious foreigners attachment to animals as pet...

An interesting Japanese Arita saucer form dish decorated in a transitional style incorporating elements of the Kakiemon style, notably the asymmetric elements within the reserves to the outer rim of the dish, with Katamono style motifs dating to the late 17th century or early 18th century and made for the domestic market. For a more sophisticated version of this type of design in Katamono style dated 1680-1700 see Shibata Volume II no 422. The dish probably date from the period 1690-1710. The ...

An interesting Japanese Arita saucer form dish decorated in a transitional style incorporating elements of the Kakiemon style, notably the asymmetric elements within the reserves to the outer rim of the dish, with Katamono style motifs dating to the late 17th century or early 18th century and made for the domestic market. For a more sophisticated version of this type of design in Katamono style dated 1680-1700 see Shibata Volume II no 422. The dish probably date from the period 1690-1710. The ...

A tall beaker of bell form decorated in underglaze blue with a pair of auspicious Dragons each clasping a “tama” pearl above its head set against a lightening field with auspicious ruyi form clouds supporting respectively artemesin leaves on which are a pair of scrolls bound by ribbons and a flaming pearl. The design has been adapted from a Chinese precedent of the sixteenth century but with a Japanese twist to the design. The fierce Chinese Dragons have been replaced with benign Buddhist...

A tall beaker of bell form decorated in underglaze blue with a pair of auspicious Dragons each clasping a “tama” pearl above its head set against a lightening field with auspicious ruyi form clouds supporting respectively artemesin leaves on which are a pair of scrolls bound by ribbons and a flaming pearl. The design has been adapted from a Chinese precedent of the sixteenth century but with a Japanese twist to the design. The fierce Chinese Dragons have been replaced with benign Buddh...

An Arita abalone (Mother of Pearl) shaped dish painted in somenishikide style with a stylised landscape of Mountainous Islands, a shoreline with rocky outcrops with various trees including Pine, flowers and grasses with a rather peculiar and precarious structure in the foreground seemingly lacking several posts in its construction. The reverse decorated with landscape vignettes to the reverse and a six character mark for the Chinese Emperor Qianlong. It dates to the Horeki era of the Mid-E...

A rare Arita flower vase following a bronze form decorated in somenishikide style. The long flared neck decorated with a plume of stylised leaves with a pair of ring handles enamelled in green and iron red with gilding. The wasted bulbous body of the vase decorated with the figure of a Chinese scholar fishing and the reverse with stylised waves and flowering plants. The vase measures 22.5cm high and is approximately cm in diameter at its widest point 9.5cm. It weighs 620grams. The vase probably ...

A dish of moulded octagonal form with vertical raised edges decorated with a Peony leaf scrolling arabesque ground inset with shaped reserves containing auspicious Dragons and Chinese lions. The rim decorated with a stylised wave border with alternating pairs of claw waves and, gobenka, five petal flowers placed in the corners both to the interior and the exterior of the rim. Further karakusa style motifs of leaf buds to the underside of the rim and a thunder-fret border pattern to the foot of t...

A Japanese scalloped rimmed bowl with a janome, bulls eye base, decorated wth three lotus form reserves each containing an auspicious somewhat rotund karashishi with a ribboned cash symbol inset against a rather unusual budo karakusa, grape vine arabesque. The base decorated with a stylised lotus pattern and the rim with a pattern of alternating double crested waves and gobenka. The interior decorated with a shochikubai-mon; the Three Friends of Winter. The form and style of the bowl is typical ...

An Arita moulded dish of shuronogata, Hemp Palm, form decorated in underglaze blue with gilt outlined enamels, somenishikide, dating to the late Mid Edo period. The dish decorated with a kachoga design evoking an image of late Winter or early Spring incorporating the Shochikubai, the Three Friends of Winter. The under-glaze blue portion of the design a Bamboo “Tree” with shattered trunk and a pair of enlarged yukiwa, snow flake roundels, to suggest seki, viewing stones. Further details a...