Sprays of autumn grasses are depicted on the square surface of this dish. The outer rim, decorated with bands of abstract patterns—short vertical bars around the corners and horizontal dashes at the sides—is like a frame for a painting. The piece was initially formed not by using a wheel, but by pressing a clay slab over a kind of mold. The sides of the dish were curved gently upward and its corners rounded and shaped with indentations. Four looped feet were attached to the base. The marks left by several spurs, used to stack vessels in the kiln, are visible on the bottom. Decoration on the dish is in white against a gray background, a particular color combination in Shino ware known as Gray (nezumi, literally "mouse") Shino. To produce it, an iron-rich red clay slip was first applied onto the white clay body. The designs were scratched through the slip, and the entire piece was then covered with a thick, uneven feldspathic white overglaze. In the kiln, the glaze turned bubbly and porous, and, wherever there was slip beneath it, gray; in design areas where the slip had been scratched away, the overglaze remained white. Where the glaze was thin or accidentally not applied (mainly on the rim and the base), iron-oxide red accents emerged, an effect that is admired.
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鼠志野草花文額皿
Title:Dish with Grasses
Period:Momoyama period (1573–1615)
Date:late 16th–early 17th century
Culture:Japan
Medium:Stoneware with design incised through iron-rich clay slip (Mino ware, gray Shino type)
Dimensions:H. 2 3/8 in. (6 cm); W. 8 3/8 in. (21.3 cm); D. 7 1/4 in. (18.4 cm)
Classification:Ceramics
Credit Line:The Harry G. C. Packard Collection of Asian Art, Gift of Harry G. C. Packard, and Purchase, Fletcher, Rogers, Harris Brisbane Dick, and Louis V. Bell Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, and The Annenberg Fund Inc. Gift, 1975
Object Number:1975.268.436
Possibly from Kujiri Inkyô kiln.
[ Harry G. C. Packard American, Tokyo, until 1975; donated and sold to MMA].
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Seasonal Pleasures in Japanese Art (Part One)," October 12, 1995–April 28, 1996.
Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. "Oribe, iwayuru Oribeizumu ni tsuite: Gifuken Bijutsukan kaikan 15-shūnen kinenten," October 17, 1997–December 7, 1997.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Blossoms of Many Colors: A Selection from the Permanent Collection of Japanese Art," March 21–August 9, 2000.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Sense of Place: Landscape in Japanese Art," May 8–September 8, 2002.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan," October 21, 2003–January 11, 2004.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Graceful Gestures: Two Decades of Collecting Japanese Art," 2007.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Drama of Eyes and Hands: Sharaku's Portraits of Kabuki Actors," September 20, 2007–March 24, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "No Ordinary Mortals: The Human Figure in Japanese Art," 2007–2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Ukiyo-e Artists' Responses to Romantic Legends of Two Brothers: Narihira and Yukihira," March 27–June 8, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Animals, Birds, Insects, and Marine Life in Japanese Art," June 26–November 30, 2008.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Five Thousand Years of Japanese Art: Treasures from the Packard Collection," December 17, 2009–June 10, 2010.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "A Beautiful Country: Yamato-e in Japanese Art," November 20, 2010–June 5, 2011.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Discovering Japanese Art: American Collectors and the Met," February 14 - September 27, 2015.
Valenstein, Suzanne G., Julia Meech, and Marilyn Jenkins. Oriental Ceramics: The World's Great Collections. vol. 12, limited ed. ed., Tokyo: Kōdansha International Ltd., 1977, pl. 62.
Ford, Barbara Brennan. "The Arts of Japan." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 45, no. 1 (Summer 1987). p. 44, cat. no. 51.
Ford, Barbara Brennan. "Japanese Art at the Met: Elegance and Tradition." Apollo 125, no. 1 (March 1987). p. 221, fig. 9.
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