Sumida (隅田焼 / Sumida-gawa) Ovoid Vase Of Remarkable Ambition, Japan

An unusually ambitious Sumida ware (隅田焼 / Sumida-gawa) vase of ovoid form, Japan, late Meiji to early Taishō period, c. 1900–1920, attributed to Ishiguro Kōko (石黒光湖), with an impressed seal mark to the unglazed base. The rounded body rises from a short foot to a slightly flaring neck, the lower two-thirds left bare to reveal a dark, almost black-brown grogged stoneware body with a softly thrown ringed surface. From the shoulder upward, the vase erupts into a densely modeled figural tableau beneath a cascading flambé glaze of deep teal-green, aubergine and iridescent violet that pools irregularly where it meets the unglazed ground.

Three figures populate the upper body in high relief. On the left, a woman in a blue-and-white spotted kimono with a russet-lacquered coiffure sits on a rocky outcrop, cradling a woven basket glazed in pale celadon. Beside her, a remarkably naturalistic monkey, modeled in unglazed biscuit porcelain with fine incised fur and hand-tinted pink extremities, rears on its hind legs, clutching something small in its forepaw and glancing outward with an alert, almost mischievous expression. At its feet a small karako (唐子) in a spotted blue-and-white robe, with a glossy dark-glazed topknot, scrambles up the rockwork with both hands raised toward the monkey — the whole forming a small theatrical vignette of child, animal and attendant that rewards close inspection. The rockwork itself is modeled in thickly applied green-glazed foliage or waves, serving as a dramatic transition between the raw body below and the lustrous glaze pool above.

The modeling of the monkey is the virtuoso passage — Kōko's unglazed biscuit figures consistently show the workshop's best hand-work, and this example is particularly fine, with the musculature of the arms and the expression of the face carried through in careful incision and sparing polychrome wash.

Height 16.5 cm. Weight 569 g. Very good period condition; the glaze fully intact, figures and all applied elements present with no restoration, minor wear to the unglazed lower body consistent with a piece of this age.