Beaker vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
1700 - 1720
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt, enamel, gold.
Measurements
410 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Arita
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 881198.2
Summary
One of a pair of beaker vases, porcelain, cylindrical with flaring rims and widening and then inverting bases, made in Arita, Hizen Province, Japan, 1700–20, decorated in the Imari palette in underglaze blue and overglaze red, green and black enamels and gold with shaped panels containing long-tailed birds among flowers and rocks (on one side) and peonies growing over fences (on the other), against a ground of chrysanthemums in red and gold with foliage in blue, the inverted base with stylised upright flowers in blue and white, a band under the rim with a coiling dragon on a red ground.
Full description
In the early 18th century, the porcelain made at the Arita kilns for export to Europe became increasingly exuberant (Ferguson 2016). The various motifs had specific meanings in the Japanese context, but on export wares they were used more to create dense visual patterns that appealed to European late-baroque taste. In European interiors symmetrical sets of Imari beaker vases and jars, known as ‘garnitures’, were used as grand visual punctuation marks.
References
Ferguson 2016: Patricia F. Ferguson, Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces, Philip Wilson Publishers, 2016, pp. 70-1