Live Auction 20621Japanese and Korean Art Including the Collection of David and Nayda Utterberg
TWO SQUARE EARTHENWARE DISHES WITH PINE-TREE DESIGNS
Lot 51

TWO SQUARE EARTHENWARE DISHES WITH PINE-TREE DESIGNS

Kenzan Ware (Edo period, 18th century), first dish signed Kenzan sei sho and sealed Kenzan and Sei sho; second signed, dated and inscribed on the base Fuyo Yoshu Kenzan Toin Shokosai Shinsei zo uji Hoei kanoto-u haru (Made in the spring of 1711 by the hermit potter of Kyoto, Kenzan Shokosai Shinsei) (Ogata Kenzan; 1663-1743)

Closed22 March 2022

Price Realised

USD 69,300

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TWO SQUARE EARTHENWARE DISHES WITH PINE-TREE DESIGNS
Kenzan Ware (Edo period, 18th century), first dish signed Kenzan sei sho and sealed Kenzan and Sei sho; second signed, dated and inscribed on the base Fuyo Yoshu Kenzan Toin Shokosai Shinsei zo uji Hoei kanoto-u haru (Made in the spring of 1711 by the hermit potter of Kyoto, Kenzan Shokosai Shinsei) (Ogata Kenzan; 1663-1743)
Each square dish with white-slip ground and painting in underglaze iron oxide; the first painted with a grove of pines beneath a poem, which reads: "To be fond of pines is to have the hardness of an iron mind. Therefore, I tend them in front of my winding fence;" the second painted with a moss-covered pine tree; the paintings on each dish framed by a single line on the inner surface; the exterior of the second dish has simple latticework with oblong floral reserves in underglaze iron and the interior sides have stylized floral sprays in line borders
First 8 1⁄2 x 8 1⁄2 x 1 in. (21.6 x 21.6 x 2.9 cm.); second 8 3⁄4 x 8 3⁄4 x 1 in. (22.2 x 22.2 x 2.9 cm.)
With wood boxes both signed and authenticated by the 15th Grand Tea Master of the Urasenke tea school, Hounsai Genshitsu (b. 1923), and with kao (cursive monogram)

Baron Hara Tomitaro (Sankei; 1868-1939), Yokohama
Setsu Iwao, Tokyo
Jack C. Greene, New York
Private collection, Japan

Specialist note

The plate with moss-covered pine tree (here, the second dish) is a very rare example of dated Kenzan ware. It is inscribed with a date in the spring of 1711, the very end of the period during which Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) operated his kiln in the Narutaki area, the hills in the northwestern suburbs of Kyoto. There is one other square dish with a similar date in a private collection in Japan.
The painterly pine tree is likely by Kenzan's hand, or by that of his brother, Korin. Works such as this one from the late period of the Narutaki kiln, with a single, isolated subject, show greater abbreviation and immediacy than the earliest Kenzan wares. In 1712, Kenzan closed his kiln in the secluded outlying area--his client base there may have dried up--and moved to the downtown area.