37. M3502
£38,000
Description
Chinese porcelain blue and white summer mizusashi, water container, painted on the interior with two buffalo amongst clumps of grass beneath ruyi-clouds and mountains in the distance, all within a double ring, the exterior with a single rib and stripes imitating a barrel, the foot rim and base unglazed revealing the biscuit body.
8 1/8 inches, 20.7 cm inner rim diameter.
Tianqi/Chongzhen, circa 1625-1630.
Edo period box and lacquer cover.
Provenance & Additional Information
- From the Jintsu family collection, 1960’s.
- Sold by Jintsu-Seigando to a private collector in Toyama Prefecture, circa 1980.
- Sold by Jintsu-Seigando, Tokyo, 8th February 2014.
- Included by Marchant in their exhibition of Kosometsuke & Shonzui, 2024, no. 37, pp. 96/99.
- Two similar summer mizusashi, one painted on the interior with lotus, the other with cranes, both in the Itsu-o Fine Art Museum collection, Osaka, are illustrated by Masahiko Kawahara in Ko-sometsuke, Monochrome Section, nos. 378 & 380 respectively, p. 100.
- A shard discovered at Jingdezhen Shibaqiao kiln site from the Tianqi/Chongzhen strata of the edge of a similar summer mizusashi with barrel-form exterior is illustrated by Huang Qing Hua in Colorful Japan – the Special Exhibition of the Ordered Porcelains at the End of Ming Dynasty from Japan, 2021, which relates to discoveries from this period at Jingdezhen, p. 137.
- The shallower form of a summer mizusashi was intended to keep the water cooler than the more typical form. Very few large ones of this size are recorded. The drawing is particularly bold and the piece is remarkably dignified.
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