Bottle with Pine Tree

The dark-brown clay body of this bulbous bottle is coated with a thick white slip, brushed on generously from the lower section of the body up to the mouth to create a “blank canvas” for the design. Across the front, the branches of a large pine tree gracefully sweep and curve. The pine needles are rendered in iron-brown pigment and lightly washed with a copper-green glaze. On the reverse, three slender rocks rise vertically, each crowned with a small pine tree. This piece belongs to a group of wares long known as “two-color Karatsu”—and now more accurately referred to as “Old Takeo” (Ko-Takeo), following the realization that most examples were not produced in or around the city of Karatsu but rather at kilns approximately twenty-five miles south, in the Takeo area. From its inception, Old Takeo ware incorporated not only iron-painted motifs but also inlaid patterns and stamped decorations—techniques introduced from the Korean Peninsula.