Small Antique Edo Period 1690-1720 Japanese Porcelain Teapot Imari Red Gold Panels

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Condition Report: Overall Condition; See description.

Small teapot, square, rounded body on flat unglazed base. Curved handle and a short straight spout. Small upright mouthrim, flat lid with round knob. Imari decorated in iron-red and gold on the sides with flowering plants and grasses and two deeply recessed kidney-shaped panels with modelled decorations in high relief. One panel with a cock, chicken and two eggs on the other a bird perched on a branch of a prunus tree. Round the base of the spout an upturned pointed leaves pattern border. On the handle a floret between scrolls. On the cover round the base of the knob a leaves pattern border in low relief.

In category 36 ‘Coloured Imari with no underglaze blue, iron-red and gold only’ of his Japanese export porcelain, Impey states that the implication of this singular restriction of palette, without the use of underglaze blue, is that these may be the product of a single enamelling workshop, but may or may not be the product of a single kiln. The restriction is probably one of choice, for it would hardly be cheaper, if at all, to use a wider range of enamels, and no cheaper to use underglaze blue. (Impey 2002, pp.220-221)

Bottles, vases, teapots and other objects with similar recessed panels that form a kind of window through to a deeper picture layer were only produced for a short period. This was probably because they were too time-consuming to make and therefore expensive. This type of decoration is only found on Japanese pieces; Chinese imitations are still unknown. (Jörg 2003/1, p.98, cat.96)

Japanese Imari objects decorated in a low relief are rare. In ‘Fine & Curious’ a bottle (cat. 96), two teapots (cat. 243) and a shaving bowl (231), all decorated in a low relief, are published. Jörg states that these objects could have been made in a specialised workshop producing for export. (Jörg 2003/1, p.100 & p.186)

The inset relief-modelled scenes, often of chickens, can also be found on longnecked bottles. (Impey 2002, p,221, cat. 381)

For an similarly shaped, sized and decorated teapot, please see:

Japanese Export Porcelain. Catalogue of the Collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, (O. Impey, Hotei Publishing, Amsterdam, 2002), p.221, cat. 381.

Height with cover 76 mm (2.99 inch), height without cover 68 mm (2.68 inch), diameter handle to spout 100 mm (3.94 inch), diameter of mouthrim 20 mm (0.79 inch), diameter of foot 28 mm (1.10 inch), weight including cover 99 grams (3.49 ounce (oz.)), weight cover 6 grams (0.21 ounce (oz.))

Condition: Firing flaws to the handle, the mouthrim an underside of the rim of the cover, two very tiny fleabites to the tip of the spout and a firing tension hairline to the underside of the handle.

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