Japanese Art | Oribe ware ewer with designs of blossoming plum branches and various geometic motifs

Oribe ware ewer with designs of blossoming plum branches and various geometic motifs

early 17th century

Momoyama or early Edo period

Stoneware clay with Oribe copper-green glaze and iron pigment under colorless glaze
H: 19.7 W: 20.6 D: 20.6 cm
Japan

Purchase F1969.21a-b

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This ewer would have been used to refill the fresh-water jar midway during a tea ceremony. The patchwork of decorative motifs derives from contemporary tsujigahana textile design, which combined tie-dyed areas of color with hand-drawn motifs on the white ground.

Oribe ware is distinguished by the use of a glaze tinted green with copper oxide fired in oxidation. The glaze sometimes was used as an overall coating for vessels but more typically was applied in carefully calculated patches to contrast with areas of pictorial or geometric decoration painted with iron pigment under clear glaze. Oribe ware became a staple of the Mino kilns from circa 1600, with the startup of the first new type of multi-chambered climbing kiln to be built in Mino at Motoyashiki. This ewer may have been made at the Kamagane kiln, which operated circa 1610–1635.