Description

Chinese porcelain blue and white sweetmeat dish, mukozuke, in the form of a recumbent buffalo, the details picked out in lines, blue wash and splashed on both sides with fukizumi, the underside moulded with the head and tail outlined, all on three short feet.

7 inches, 17.8 cm long.

Tianqi, 1621-1627.

Provenance & Additional Information

  • Originally from a set of five, purchased at Ikeuchi, Tokyo, 23rd May 2009.
  • Included by Marchant in their exhibition of Kosometsuke & Shonzui, 2024, no. 23, pp. 66/67.
  • Another from this set was included by Marchant in their catalogue of Recent Acquisitions, 2010, no. 13, pp. 22/3.
  • A set of five in the Tekisui Fine Arts Museum, Ashiya, Japan, are illustrated by Masahiko Kawahara in Ko-sometsuke, Colour Section, no. 154, pp. 190/1.
  • Another is included by Julia B. Curtis in Trade Taste and Transformation, Jingdezhen Porcelain for Japan, 1620-1645, China Institute Gallery, 2006, no. 28, p. 58, where the author notes, “In China, the ox has been revered for countless centuries. It is the symbol of spring and of agriculture, a patient beast of burden which pulled the plow for peasants affluent enough to feed one. Oxen have also long been associated with water. In very early China, figures of oxen were placed in rivers as talismans when dykes threatened to give way. In Japan, the ox has similar connotations, and its image was used as a talisman against smallpox and other illnesses”.
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