Welcome to JPN
Largest selection of Japanese ceramics by first-ranked artists

Ceramic Feature

Sometsuke Benikarakusa Sansui Kabin (染付紅唐草山水花瓶)

This is an Arita ware vase which Ryuzumi-san has created.
Chimon means that it's filled with the patterns like shippo koshi and others.
There is the phoenix mythical legendary grouse being filled with the arabesque patterns.
Sansui is the painting using Chinese ink and the subject is nature such as mountanis, rivers, valleys and others.

Sometsuke (染付)
- A pottery with blue pictures and patterns on a white background-

It refers to the skill of blue-painting on a unglazed ceramic.
Patterns are painted with a "gosu" containing cobalt oxide that turns blue color.
And it's baked after being glazed on top of it.

Sometsuke has been made from the early days of Arita ware in 1610s.
At first it was influenced the Chinese pottery, there's a pile of efforts by potters and
today's sometsuke has one kind of exquisite beauty even in its simplicity.