Vase
Category
Ceramics
Date
1700 - 1720
Materials
Porcelain, cobalt, enamel, gold.
Measurements
420 mm (Height)
Place of origin
Arita
Order this imageCollection
Saltram, Devon
NT 881199
Summary
Beaker vase, porcelain, cylindrical with a flaring rim and with widening and then inverting base, made in Arita, Hizen Province, Japan, 1700–20, decorated in the Imari palette in underglaze blue and overglaze red and green enamels and gold with shaped panels with cranes among pine trees, prunus and chrysanthemums, against a ground of stylised foliage in blue and white, on one side a central lobed and pointed panel in red containing a white rabbit, the inverted base undecorated except for a blue line, a band under the rim with stylised dragons 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. In Japanese folklore a white rabbit is said to live on the moon, preparing rice cakes and the elixir of immortality.
References
Ferguson 2016: Patricia F. Ferguson, Ceramics: 400 Years of British Collecting in 100 Masterpieces, Philip Wilson Publishers, 2016, pp. 70-1