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An important Ai-Kakiemon floriform dish
from the Royal Collection of Augustus the Strong of Saxony
 
Arita, Ai-Kakiemon type, Hizen province, Japan
Early Edo Period (late 17th century)
Genroku era (1688-1703)
circa 1690
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Marked on reverse with Wheel-Incised JOHANNEUM Japanese Palace Inventory number 'N:184~~~'
 
Measuring 23.8 cm in diameter
 
This superby painted ai-Kakiemon (blue Kakiemon) dish displays the finest Kakiemon features, the floriform rim moulded in ten pointed lobes edged in fuchi-beni iron-rim dressing. Painted in exceptionally fine and rich graduated underglaze cobalt blue tones with a snarling tiger beneath a grinning dragon, the former representing The Earth, the latter allegorical of The Heavens.
 
Literature: An identical example (without the Johanneum inventory mark) is held in the collection of The Stichting Twickel, Delden, The Netherlands, JK 38, and is illustrated in The Oriental Ceramics Society publication 'Porcelain for Palaces: The Fashion for Japan in Europe, 1650-1750' (1990), plate 126.
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