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Square Plate with Design of Grapes and Squirrel

first half 19th century
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 226
Kutani ware is renowned for its vibrant overglaze palette, known as the “Kutani Five Colors”: yellow, green, and purple, complemented by dark blue and red. Porcelains with this color palette produced from the mid-seventeenth to early eighteenth century in Arita are known as Old Kutani. In the late Edo period, several kilns in the Kaga domain (present-day Ishikawa Prefecture), including Yoshidaya (later Miyamotoya) and Wakasugi, revived and reinterpreted this style. Because grapevines bear abundant clusters of fruit, East Asian artists have long used the fruit to symbolize abundance, longevity, and fertility. Squirrels, known for their vitality and large families, likewise came to represent the wish for a flourishing lineage. Together, grapes and squirrels—depicted here in yellow, green, and purple—form an auspicious motif associated with enduring prosperity and generational continuity.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 葡萄栗鼠文角皿
  • Title: Square Plate with Design of Grapes and Squirrel
  • Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
  • Date: first half 19th century
  • Culture: Japan
  • Medium: Porcelain with polychrome enamels over transparent glaze (Kutani type)
  • Dimensions: H. 1 in. (2.5 cm); W. 6 3/4 in. (17.1 cm); L. 6 7/8 in. (17.5 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: 1975.268.576
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

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