KO-SOMETSUKE PORCELAIN INKSTONE
MING DYNASTY, TIANQI PERIOD (1620-1627)
10 cm long, 3.4 cm high (with cover)
The inkstone is of waisted rectangular shape with rounded sides, the flat top with a slightly recessed unglazed surface and an oval reservoir. The vessel is supported on one narrow side and two raised feet. Painted under the glaze in cobalt blue on both sides with a three-clawed dragon, on one of the narrow sides a frontal dragon head and on the other a swastika and clouds. Fitted wood cover.
Ko-sometsuke (old blue and white) refers to a type of Chinese porcelain produced during the seventeenth century specifically for the Japanese market. These wares were particularly valued by Japanese tea practitioners. The irregularities in the glaze, especially along the rim edges, were not regarded as defects but were instead admired for their rustic quality. Such imperfections resonated with the aesthetic ideals of the Japanese tea ceremony, which prized simplicity, naturalness, and the beauty of imperfection.
For a porcelain inkstone of similar form see Kawahara, Ko-sometsuke, Monochrome Section, Kyoto, 1977, pl. 427.
Provenance:
Formerly in the collection of Sigisbert Chrétien Bosch Reitz (1860-1938), prior to 1930
Formerly in the Six family collection
Sigisbert Chrétien Bosch Reitz was a Dutch painter who lived in Munich and Paris before traveling to Japan in 1900 where he studied traditional woodblock printing and Asian art. In 1915, he was appointed the first Curator of the Department of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a position he held until 1927. During his tenure, he made significant acquisitions for the museum, as well as for the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Bosch Reitz returned to the Netherlands in 1928, where he lived until his death in 1938.