Circular Dish with Fluted Vertical Side Walls

Artists

Description

The steeply inclined walls of this circular, shallow dish rise from the broad, flat floor to the foliated lip. Eleven deep vertical grooves, imparted with a tool with rounded end, segment the side walls so that the dish resembles an open blossom, the grooves and the resulting foliations at the lip separating one petal from the next. The dish is undecorated except for the indentations and for the single bowstring line that distinguishes the floor from the side walls. The dish rests on a wide, slightly splayed footring. Except for its base and the inside of its footring, the dish was covered all over with a thin coating of white slip, which smooths the surface and provides an even, white ground that perfectly showcases the fine, pale, bluish green celadon glaze. The dish is fully glazed, save the bottom of the footring; the glaze on the base is relatively thin, suggesting that has only a single layer of glaze, whereas the glaze on the rest of the dish is thicker, further suggesting that it must have been dipped in the glaze slurry twice. The gray stoneware body is visible on the bottom of the footring. Traces of fine sand adhere to the base of the dish as kiln adhesions. Fingernail impressions visible on the exterior of the footring reveal where the potter held the piece during manufacture, likely while dipping the dish in the white slip or glaze slurry. This dish is accompanied by two traditional storage boxes: a Chinese, blue-fabric-covered storage box and a traditional Japanese, wooden storage box. The blue-fabric-covered box was made at the beginning of the twenty-first century, but the wooden storage box was made for this piece in Japan in the 1950s, shortly after the dish was transported to Japan from China. In fact, the wooden box likely was supplied by Mayuyama and Co., Tokyo. The blue fabric covered box was supplied by Uragami Sokyu-do, Tokyo.

Dimensions

H. 4.6 cm x Diam. 12.1 cm (1 13/16 x 4 3/4 in.)

Provenance

Mayuyama & Co., Tokyo (?-1950s). Private collection, Japan (1950s-1963). Mayuyama & Co., Tokyo (1963 -1964), sold; through [Robert H. Ellsworth, New York, 1964]; to Ray Thompson, London (1964-2005), sold; through [Uragami Sokyu-do Tokyo, International Asian Art Fair, New York, March 2007]; to Robert D. Mowry, Brookline, MA (2007-2011), gift; to Harvard Art Museums, 2011.