Page 85 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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Footed bowl with pine tree design Set of five dishes with blossoming
cherry tree design
c. 1690-17205
Nabeshima ware 1710-1720
Porcelain with underglaze cobalt blue Nabeshima ware
Diameter 29.6 (nVs) Porcelain with underglaze cobalt
Suntory Museum of Art, Tokyo blue and polychrome enamels
7
Diameter 20 (7 /s) each
Illustrated page 65
Tokyo National Museum
• This tripod dish is another superb • These five dishes constitute a set,
example of the design abilities of the
Nabeshima artisans. The pine tree a common occurrence in Nabeshima
8 4 ware, which was usually made in sets
appears to wrap around itself so that of five, ten, or twenty. They employ
the gnarled base of the trunk practi-
cally touches the topmost branches. the standard seven-sun size and the
circular composition,
classic
with a
The circular design around an empty blossoming cherry tree wrapped
center is one of the main characteris- around each plate and the center free
tics of mature Nabeshima design.
of decoration.
The pine tree was an apt symbol for
the samurai, as it was considered in Blossoming cherry trees have played
an important role in Japanese
aesthet-
Chinese mythology, along with plum ics from an early period. Evocative of
and bamboo, to be one of the three spring, the flower petals soon fall to
"gentlemen friends" of winter, staying the ground, a reminder of the fleeting
green as it does throughout the cold beauty of the season and even of life.
months. An old pine is considered The composition of a bending cherry
particularly auspicious.
tree is depicted and dated 1718 in the
The dish itself is shallow, with thin Nabeshima pattern book (zuanchó),
walls. It stands on three molded leaf- handed down in the Nabeshima family.
shaped legs that are covered in a Yet designs were often repeated for
cobalt blue glaze. Because of this the decades, and caution should be exer-
piece had to be fired with a special cised in assigning a date of manufac-
stacking tool and required an unglazed ture to these dishes. The characteristic
circular area around the base on depiction of tree roots, also seen in
which to rest, creating a bull's-eye Kano-school painting, is clearly
footring. There are spur marks along depicted in the pattern book for blos-
the unglazed area. The exterior has a soming plum and mandarin orange
design of three magnolia sprays. NCR trees as well as for cherry trees.
In these dishes the cherry blossoms
have all been faintly outlined in under-
glaze cobalt blue, then painted again
in overglaze enamels. This painstaking
process (Chinese: doucai, or "joined
colors") was developed in China during
the fifteenth century. Because of the
time and skill necessary, the technique
was employed at the Nabeshima kilns
in Ôkawachi only for special items.
The exteriors of the dishes display
the classic cash and comb design: three
groupings of six linked circles on the
body and a comb pattern circling the
exterior of the footring. NCR
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