Large porcelain platter

From Japan
Edo period, around AD 1680

Decorated in overglaze enamels

This magnificent Japanese dish is based on earlier seventeenth-century Chinese examples, decorated in underglaze blue, which were exported around the world. In addition it uses enamelling in the combination of colours which came to be known as 'old Japan', and later, Imari.

The wide symmetrical border surrounds the central medallion with its design of a potted tree in a fanciful floral setting.

L. Smith, V. Harris and T. Clark, Japanese art: masterpieces in (London, The British Museum Press, 1990)

, Hakubutsukan shozō Nihon-Ch (Tokyo National Museum, 1987)