A Late 17th Century Kraak Style Porcelain Bowl, Arita or Kakiemon Kilns.

A Late 17th Century Kraak Style Bowl, Kakiemon or Arita Kilns c.1680-1700. This Japanese porcelain bowl with indented rim is in the form of a Chinese export porcelain Kraak ware bowl from the late Ming dynasty. It is low-fired, with underglaze cobalt blue decoration, unlike nearly all Chinese kraak ware there additional enamels. The enamel decoration is in the Japanese Kakiemon palette, however the design is a fusion of Chinese kraak porcelain and Kakiemon elements. The everted rim is painted with crosse eyed Taotie mask is a stylised zoomorphic monster face frequently cast on ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessels and craved jade from the Shang and Zhou dynasties 1600 to 256 B.C. These masks often occur on Chinese Kraak porcelain bowls of this shape. The well of the bowl is very much in the Japanese Kakiemon style. This small bowl might well be from the Kakiemon kilns, even though the porcelain isn’t the bright white colour used on enamelled Kakiemon. Kakiemon porcelain with underglaze blue is quite different, it is thicker, a little bit of a blue grey colour and is quite often crazed like the present example. For a Kakiemon dish with underglaze blue as well as over-glazed enamels see below. There is a dish in the catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum where Dr. Oliver Impey was curator, the notes to the O.C.S. exhibition state that sherds of dishes similar to this have been found at the Kakiemon kiln site, this information probably come from Dr.Impey who was a regular visitor to Japan. SOLD See Below For More Photographs and Information.