Porcelain Ko-sometsuke square dish

A square porcelain dish, supported on a low, straight foot and with flat everted rim.  The centre of the dish is painted in underglaze cobalt blue with a hare in a circle, the animal looking backwards at an arrangement of chrysanthemum flowers.  The central cartouche is reserved on a blue-washed ground with a cloud motif.  On the rim are two narrow panels of birds on branches and a wave design.  Further birds are painted on the reverse of the dish, as well as long grasses.  The base has a spurious six-character Xuande mark to the centre.  Only the foot is unglazed.

•     In Japan, small Chinese porcelain dishes were in high demand for use in the tea ceremony in the early 17th century.  Kraak-type wares were particularly popular for this purpose, their sometimes-uneven shapes and sketchy decoration considered a bonus.  The Japanese refer to such wares as Ko-sometsuke or ‘old blue and white’.  According to Daoist mythology, the hare resides in the moon, where it pounds the elixir of immortality.1   An octagonal dish made for the Japanese market, decorated with a white hare and dated c. 1620-27, is in the British Museum.2  A circular Ko-sometsuke dish, also painted with a hare is in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.3

1. Little, S. Chinese Ceramics of the Transitional Period: 1620 – 1683, China Institute of America, New York, 1984, p. 46
2. Harrison-Hall, J. Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, The British Museum Press, London 2001, no. 12:48, pp.370-1
3. Little, S. op. cit. no. 9, pp. 46-7