Japanese Meiji Stoneware Sake Bottle - Leafy Gourd Form

East Asia, Japan, Meiji period, ca. 1868 to 1912 CE. A beautiful hand-built stoneware sake bottle in the form of a gourd, displaying a flat, circular base, a voluminous body that is tapered near the top to create a bulbous neck, and a thin, slanted rim. Enveloped in a hue of olive green with a lustrous burnish, the exemplary vessel is beautifully adorned with a sinuous vine-form pottery handle that stretches from the top of the bulging neck to the mid section of the body, where it tapers and coils in a serpentine manner. Four naturalistic leaves rendered with careful attention to detail as evident in their slender veins and curled peripheries lay to the side of the handle, three on the body of the gorgeous bottle and one at the top near the rim. Size: 3.625" in diameter x 7.125" H (9.2 cm x 18.1 cm)

This style pottery is known as bizen ware. Bizen ware, also sometimes known as Inbe ware, is kilned unglazed, but during the 8 to 20-day pine wood firing, reaching temperatures of approximately 1250 ? (2282 ?F), it becomes naturally glazed with pine ash.

Provenance: private southern California, USA collection, acquired in 2005

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#162240
Condition Report: Collection label on base. Petite part of end of handle on body missing. Repair to rim and end of the handle on the body. A few very light scratches and some stains, commensurate with age. Otherwise, excellent with nice remaining pigments.