A JAPANESE ARITA BOTTLE FOR THE WESTERN MARKET

A JAPANESE ARITA BOTTLE FOR THE WESTERN MARKET

EDO PERIOD, C.1670-1710

The square-section body decorated in underglaze blue with a bouquet of roses, figures with fans in a landscape, flowering chrysanthemum and a man carrying two buckets in a mountainous river landscape, the shoulder with stylised flowers and leafy tendrils, the neck with a silver mount, together with a cork and silver stopper and a silver lid with European punch marks, the top of the lid with the monogram AR and a coronet, the base with a paper collection label numbered 23, 16.5cm. (3)

Provenance: formerly the collection of Ernest Ohly (1920-2008). Ohly ran the Berkeley Galleries on Davies Street, London, with his father William. Founded in 1941, the gallery sold antiquities from the Far East, Tribal Art and modern ceramics.

Cf. C J A Jörg, Fine & Curious, Japanese Export Porcelain in Dutch Collections, p.174, no.209 for a related but smaller bottle. Also, see J Ayers, & O Impey, Porcelain for Palaces: The Fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, p.108, no.56 for a flask with comparable decoration. The authors explain that these square bottles were based on Western glass models and the larger ones were used to store gin, and the decoration shows influences of Chinese Transitional porcelain, such as the symmetrical flowers.