71. Seeing Kinkozan on a plate

This lovely plate shows a different aspect of ceramic cloisonne.   It has a simple floral pattern at the centre and attractive decoration on the surround. On the reverse there is the now familiar Kinkozan workshop mark 錦光山. Presumably it was produced for decorative use. 

NB As with earlier objects (e.g 52, 69) the Kinkozan workshop being referred to is that of Kinkozan Sobei VI 六代錦光山宗兵.

This side view is useful to gain a better feeling for the strength of the design. The decoration is quite sparse but the background colours are well matched. There is something to attract the eye in all areas.

ref 71.3

The central flowers are drawn very simply but the blue and red colours stand out well. The ‘bean’ shaped strength wiring is densely packed, suggesting that this might have been produced by the workshop at quite an early stage.

Looking briefly at the 錦光山 mark it is, as seems usual for this workshop, casually written but readable.

The edge pattern (ref 71.10 below) is the familiar half ‘oval square’ seen on many earlier ceramic cloisonne objects. The ‘four of diamond’ shapes (image ref 71.8 and 71.9) do not seem to appear on any previous objects.

Looking at the ‘five petal’ shape in red above in image ref 71.10, this is a pattern seen many times before. Perhaps it should now be called ‘five of hearts’ to match the playing card theme of ‘four of diamonds’ introduced above.

Object 71. Plate     width 18.2 cm      weight 375 gm.

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