Momoyama – Early Edo Period, Early 17th c.
Japan
Diameter: 14cm
A “Kutsugata” (shoe-shaped) stoneware teabowl covered with a rich, unctuous black glaze. The flattened front of the bowl is reserved in a finely crackled white slip with a clumping of seven circles encasing a geometric hourglass formed of two triangles joined at their points. (This design is based on “chikiri”; winding the warp on a loom). The glaze stops well short of the foot, a flattened donut shape, slightly off center on the broadly conical bottom. The unglazed bottom reveals a brown stoneware clay body. The bottom of the bowl has been inscribed in dark red by the 13th generation Omotesenke tea master Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901-1979), who has also inscribed the box, “Yama no Ha” (Mountain’s Edge).
A similar piece, but with two larger ishidatami roundel decorations, is published in “Turning Point; Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan”. Metropoitan Museum of Art – Yale University Press 2003. Pl. 53
Provenance:
Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901 – 1979)
Private Japanese Collection
A porcelain plate with slightly flared mouth-rim sitting on a straight raised foot. The interior is decorated with a polychrome depiction of two jars in a basket with branches of camellias and narcissus in underglaze blue with overglaze enameled red, yellow and green. The rim is decorated with a band of interlocking ruyi clouds. The back is decorated with coins tied with tassels and the raised foot-rim with a comb-tooth decoration. With a fitted wooden box.
Nabeshima ware was originally produced in Hizen Province, (now Saga Prefecture), as tribute from the Feudal Lord Nabeshima to the Shogun in Edo. They represented the highest level of technical and artistic achievement in Japanese porcelain of the time.
Matching pieces have been published in “Les Cadeaux au Shogun; Porcelaine Precieuse des Seigneurs de Nabeshima” Asahi Shinbun 1997, pl. 79. Also in “Nabeshima; From Earliest to Latest Periods” Tokyo, 2011. pl. 92. Imazaizumi Motosuke, “Nabeshima, Famous Ceramics of Japan 1” Kodansha 1981, Pl. 37. and “Nabeshima to Matsugatani” Yuzankaku, Tokoy 1969. pl. 115.
A piece with the same decoration sold at Christie’s, NY in March, 2000.
A Large Barb-rimmed Longquan Celadon Charger with Impressed Peony Decoration
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
China
Diameter: 33cm
A large stoneware charger with a flattened barbed rim, detailed with a deftly carved bead around the interior edge. The cavetto is deeply scalloped and the bottom has an impressed peony decorative roundel. The entire piece is covered in an ideal sweet blue-green Longquan celadon glaze, which continues over the foot and into the underfoot, absent only in the ring where the piece sat on a cylinder during firing, and where light gray clay body has fired to a reddish buff color.
There is some minor surface scratching and staining.
A large porcelaineous stoneware jar with high shoulders tapering down to a smaller flat foot. The slightly curved neck ends in a flaring, rounded mouth-rim. The piece is covered with a translucent glaze of pale greenish tone which ends a few centimeters above the foot, revealing a dense white porcelaineous stoneware body.
Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127 AD)
China
Diameter: 14.8cm
A a thinly potted conical porcelain bowl with tall narrow foot. The interior is decorated with incised floral sprigs and the entire piece is covered with a pale blue Qingbai glaze. The underfoot is unglazed, revealing a white porcelain clay body. Exceedingly fine and translucent under light, this piece is most likely from the Hutian Kilns in Jingdezhen. In a fitted wooden box.
A stoneware tea bowl of conical form with slightly flared mouth-rim. The interior is covered with a deep black shiny glaze with random splashes in a vibrant russet color. The glaze thins at the rim to a reddish brown, and the exterior is black with a fine overlay of russet colored spots and speckles, above a black glazed foot. The underfoot is unglazed, revealing a light buff colored stoneware body. A glaze crawl on the exterior has been repaired. With a fitted wooden box.
A similar piece is featured in “Black Porcelain from the Mr. and Mrs. Yueng Wing Tak Collection” and noted as Xiuwu Ware, Henan. no. 108.
Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.)
China
Diameter: 24cm (9.35 inches)
A flat-bottomed plate with gently curved cavetto and broad, flat rim with raised edge. The inside is decorated with a Persian inspired floral medallion surrounded by six lotus in profile and six closed buds between them. The decoration is incised, then colored with blue, green and amber glazes that adhere well to the pattern. The rest of the plate is white and covered with a translucent, finely crackled glaze, now slightly degraded in some areas, that continues on the back to the flattened bottom. The entire piece sits on three legs of stylized lion’s paw form.
Provenance:
Zetterquist Galleries, 2001
Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection
A large charger with a flattened rim finished in an unglazed lip, all sitting on a wide-set rounded foot-rim. The underfoot is coated in a dark brown wash, typical of Vietnamese blue and white ceramics produced for export. The interior center has a depiction of lotus in variegated cobalt blue, surrounded by a band of loosely drawn petals and a covetto with scrolling floral design. There is a small original firing flaw in the center.
Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279 AD)
China
Diameter: 12.7 cm
A stoneware tea bowl with steep rounded sides and primarily persimmon colored glaze that streaks in a “Hare’s fur” pattern into a blackish brown color towards the bottom interior, where it pools to black. The glaze is similarly streaked around the exterior, where it pools above the foot-rim, revealing a dark grey stoneware body, small straight solid foot, and very shallow under-foot well. The rim is covered in a silver band, typical of these wares used in the Japanese tea ceremony. With fitted wooden box. Repaired rim chip (old repair).
In Japan, this form would have been used for a less formal “usu-cha” tea ceremony.
A similar predominantly persimmon colored example is published in “Song Ceramics from the Kwan Collection”, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1994, pl. 165.
RECENTLY CLOSED EXHIBITION: ASIA WEEK NEW YORK 2024
Chinese and Vietnamese Ceramics from American and Japanese Collections
March 14 – 22, 2024
Asia Week Hours: Mar 14-22, 11am-6pm (otherwise by appointment)
We are delighted to present an exhibition of Chinese and Vietnamese Ceramics, all sourced from American and Japanese collections.
The Chinese pieces range in date from the Tang through Ming Dynasty, starting with a large Tang Dynasty whiteware jar, rare for its size and excellent condition. There is a selection of nine Song Dynasty pieces with fine examples of Ding, Yaozhou, Henan and Cizhou pieces from Northern China. From Southern China, there are elegant examples of Qingbai porcelains from the Hutien Kilns and a Jian-yao “Hare’s fur” tea bowl from a Japanese tea ceremony collection. From the Ming Dynasty there are two Longquan celadons; The barbed-rim charger with an ideal minty-green glaze color, and an exquisite “Gu” form vase, with Taoist trinary symbols, in an old lacquer box with silver inscription, also from a Japanese tea ceremony collection.
Most of the Vietnamese selections come from the collection of Mary and Cheney Cowles, whose extraordinary collection of Chinese ceramics sold in these rooms last Spring. They collected Vietnamese ceramics with the same exacting eye for quality, condition and beauty with which they chose their Chinese wares. Representing Northern Vietnamese kilns from the Ly Dynasty (1009-1225) through the Le Dynasty (1428-1788), this scholarly collection includes wares of varied techniques, forms and functions. From the elegant Thanh Hoa pieces with Buddhist inspired form, to Blue and white porcelaineous pieces of excellent condition and intricate decoration, this group exhibits the finest of Vietnamese wares.
We have added four other Vietnamese ceramics from Japanese and American collections which, as with many of the Cowles’ pieces, have illustrious provenance and publication histories.
This is our seventh Vietnamese exhibition in the last 30 years. It is a field that we thoroughly enjoy and still feel to be eminently collectable. The gallery is particularly fond of exhibiting Vietnamese ceramics together with Chinese ceramics, as it not only shows their inevitable stylistic and technical connections, but also highlights the unique charm and joyful spontaneity of Vietnamese design and decoration.
Zetterquist Galleries was founded in 1992 by Eric J. Zetterquist to present the finest of Asian ceramics throughout the ages. Our clients include major museums and the most discerning collectors of Asian ceramics from around the world.
While most Asian antiquities galleries choose one country and show several different media from that country, Zetterquist chose to show one medium, ceramics, but cover all of East Asia. The flow of materials with stylistic and technical influences around the region over the past 2,000 years tells a fascinating story that gets more exciting with time.