Chinese Porcelain 17C Kosometsuke dish Mount Fuji Horses Deer Mountain Rarity

Out of stock

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Condition Report: Overall Condition A (Very Good) Rimfritting and 3 or 4 firing flaws (last pictures) They are flaws happened during firing. Size: 249mmx267x52mm

A very nicely decorated serving dish, 1625-1635. Similar piece also in the Metropolitan Museum
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/75822
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2010.206/

This dish was made for service in the tea ceremony. The Triangular dish, with 3 lobes seperated by ridges at the top, echoes the shap of Mount Fuji, Japan’s most sacred mountain.

In the foreground, deer and horses cavort across rocky promontories; a willow stands behind the horses. In the middle ground, mountains are stacked behind each other in a manner reminiscent of earlier landscape conventions; the individual peaks are formed of contours repeated one atop the other to suggest mass. A leafless tree clongs to a peak in the middle ground, and above it stands a tree with tiny blossoms, a prunus, significant for blooming earlier than other trees. In the far distance, an eight-character inscription beside three flying birds hangs beneath horizontal clouds. The inscription reads mu shi yu ju, lu ma yu you; “living among trees and rocks, roaming with deer and horse”

This dish is pictured in many books about 17th century items, always given an important place in the book, simply a rare and beautiful piece.

For example in;
Trade, Taste and Transformation, Jingdezhen porcelain for Japan, 1620-1645, Julia B. Curtis, 41-42.

28-2-19-1-3