Five Square Dishes with Leaf Designs

Artist

Nakazato Taroemon XII (Japanese, 1895 – 1985)

Date

Circa 1960s-1970s

Medium

Ceramic

Dimensions

Each : 3/4 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. (1.91 x 13.97 x 13.97 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Maurice Kawashima

Object Number

1990.3.37

Label

For more than 300 years, fourteen generations of potters from the Nakazato clan have produced ceramics in the village of Karatsu in Saga prefecture. These dishes were produced by the twelfth generation head of the clan, Nakazato Taroemon, also called Muan, who was declared a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government in 1976. Using an old Chinese technique, the dishes are decorated with leaf designs that were created by impressing real leaves into the glazed surfaces of the dishes and allowing them to burn away in the kiln so that only their ghostly imprints remain.