Diagonal diameter : 7 1/8 inches (18.1 cm)
Height : 2 3/4 inches (7 cm)
Momoyama period, late 16th century A.D.

Poetic name: Autumn Song

Provenance:

Koichi Yanagi Oriental Fine Arts, at Kokon, Inc. New York

*Brief history of Shino ware*
Shino ware was a small miracle of coincidence discovered by a famous Japanese potter, Arakawa Toyozo. In 1930, he traveled to Nagoya to view an exhibition of Kitaoji Rosanjin’s pottery. He found fragments of Shino ceramics and eventually discovered all the old Shino kiln sites in Mino province (Shino is also known as Mino ware).

This mukozuke (appetizer) dish is freely, beautifully and harmoniously painted with grasses and flower patterns with a successful firing bringing out the deep brown oxidized colour from the base of soft off-white feldpathic glaze. The moist off-white glaze was also applied over the whole exterior base of this piece. Three legs were made from thin ropes of clay rolled with fingers and attached by impressing both ends of the rope forcibly onto the body. This style of attaching the legs seems to have been common and standard among the genius Shino potters. With the ideal lucky number 5 in Japanese culture, this dish might had been produced with a set of five, but it’s debatable.There, I have specifically created an appetizer infusion dish of the East and the West. Right after the photo shoot of this bowl, this dish was happily consumed by the photographer, Tetsu, and his assistant, Amelie.