Japanese Porcelain Blue And White Dish Edo Period (1603-1868) 17 Century / 18th Century Plate

A rare blue and white dish with hand-painted and Konnyaku stamped decoration.
Japan, Arita, Edo period, c. 1680-1720.

The round dish on a foot rim with flaring sides and a brown dressed rim. Decorated in blue and white with the Konnyaku printing technique as well as painted by hand, with two deer underneath a maple tree with a rocky landscape in washes of blue beneath them. The base with florals to the border and spur marks to the center.

This method of stamping used a stiff, blancmange-type stamp, using starch derived from the corm of a large type of arum ("konnyaku, devils tongue"). Fresh stamps were probably moulded from a master made by gouging continuous grooves in a flat pottery slab. 

Ref:
A similar dish with deer and maple tree, made with the same technique is in the V&A collection, Accession number C.113-1919.

A blue and white dish with a similar Konnyaku printed maple tree but decorated with a bird instead of deer is also in the V&A collection, Accession number FE.40-2006 and illustrated in KoNabeshima (Irene Finch, 2006), fig. 10d, section IIIH, 2.

For a short article on Konnyaku by Irene Finch (a similar dish is also published here), see: https://www.chinese-porcelain-art.com/pages/articles-top-level/antique-japanese-ceramics-and-works-of-art/konnyaku-how-was-it-done-and-when-and-what-are-the-implications/

Dimensions:
Diameter 19.2 cm, height 2.8 cm.

Condition:
Very good condition, without damages.

Inv. No: MW97