17thC Arita Kakiemon Dish #4

This is a fourth really nice hexagonal shallow bowl dish made in Japan in the 17th century. Likely from the Arita area so they are today known as Arita ware or Hizen ware though this is used more for blue and white pieces. The wares with added color are known as Imari were with Kakiemon as a sub group. Kutani wares also come from this area but are different yet again. This little dish is a really nice early piece dating around 1680 so before European porcelain was around which is what I usually collect. The piece is hand painted in the Kakiemon style with an early phoenix bird / ho-o flying above a flowering chrysanthemum branch I believe. The glaze is bluish which is typical of this period. This dish just screams quality - the porcelain is superb and the painter was so confident that he only put two small opposing decoration on it. The underside has two blue designs to it as shown. It is the perfect piece to show off both the quality of the porcelain and the decoration. The saucer is in perfect condition for the age. There are numerous manufacturing flaws to the porcelain but no true damage. The dish is 1 inch tall and about 5 inches at the widest point. It is unmarked which is normal. I have five of these dishes in all. In European porcelain it would be unusual to find five dishes still together after all these years but in Japanese porcelain it is not that uncommon as the number five is considered important in their culture, and this extends to its food traditions as well. There are five senses, five colors, the fifth taste, five ways and five attitudes. Plus Japanese prefer odd numbers rather than even numbers. Some ven numbers like the number 4 are considered bad luck numbers and are associated with “death”. And lastly asymmetry is good in a tea ceremony. 3 and 5 is better than 4 or 6. Please email me for more information or other pictures.