Page 96 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

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34
Melon-shaped dish with melon design
1691/1749
Utsutsugawa ware
Stoneware with white slip, iron oxide,
and copper green glaze
7
Length 14.9 (5 /s)
The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Saga
Illustrated page 40

• Utsutsugawa ware was made for a
little more than fifty years during the 95
first half of the eighteenth century in
what is currently the Nagasaki Prefec-
ture, Kyushu. It is justifiably famous
for its delicate forms and refined dec-
oration. The best Utsutsugawa pieces
play with spatial ambiguity in both
form and design.
Utsutsugawa ware was established
as the official pottery of the Isahaya
domain in 1691 by a potter named
Tanaka Keibuzaemon from Arita. The
Isahaya were vassals of the Nabeshima
family, which granted them permis-
sion to open a kiln and to make only 35 The designs on the interior and the
bowls and dishes. Production of these Square dish with wisteria design exterior of the piece are different in
ceramics peaked during the Genroku spirit and execution. On the interior
era but eventually ceased in 1749, 1691/1749 the lower right half is covered diago-
perhaps because of the expansion of Utsutsugawa ware nally with dabbed slip in an abstract
the nearby porcelain kilns. Stoneware with white slip, iron oxide, pattern reminiscent of geometric
and copper green glaze
This dish exhibits all of the design Widthi8.2(7'/8) designs on some textiles. A realistic
qualities that make Utsutsugawa ware The Kyushu Ceramic Museum, Saga and carefully drawn wisteria branch
one of the most striking stonewares appears to grow from the slip design.
produced in the second half of the • This dish was formed on a potter's Wisteria branches were popular
Edo period. It is formed in the shape wheel, then placed into a press-mold, designs during the Genroku era and
of a melon, with white slip applied after which the corners were cut off were often seen in textile pattern
in a circular pattern and sections of and the edges sliced clean. The iron- books and on kosode textiles. The
the melon delineated in iron oxide. rich clay body is extremely dark and exterior of the piece has a circular slip
A smaller melon is naturalistically thinly formed. design applied in a hafeeme method
depicted inside the dish, with flowers (brushed slip).
and leaves on vines that spread across This dish would have been part of a
the lower half of the piece and even set of five and used as a side dish
spill onto the exterior. The painted (mufcozuke) to hold food during a meal
melon appears to grow out of the accompanying a tea ceremony. NCR
sculptured melon shape of the over-
all vessel. The counterclockwise swirl
of white slip draws the eye back into
the center, however. These ambiguous
spatial relationships are an example
of playfulness (asobi) in Edo-period
Japanese artistic production. NCR