5. Small shallow bowl, Japanese

5. Small shallow bowl, Japanese (possibly the lid to a donburi bowl?)

Coarse gray clay; tan glaze with design elements in green, blue, and red. Weight: 158 g (5.6 oz). Rim diameter: 12.8 cm (5-1/16 in); foot ring diameter: 5.5 cm (2-1/8 in). Height: 4 cm (1-1/2 in).

This is one of my favorite pieces and a total mystery. It was sold as a small bowl, but I wonder if it might be the cover to a domburi bowl and be turned with the foot ring facing up. It has been much used; the rim and the base have numerous small chips, and liquids have seeped in through the cracks to discolor the surface. Use and age have given it a beauty it may not have possessed when it was new.

The clay is very coarse. The design elements were applied with a calligraphy brush. The interior of the dish has what appears to be a Chinese character in an extreme “grass” style executed in dark blue. A narrow blue-green band runs along the exterior of the rim. Just below this are several decorations. The most prominent is a row of three circular vegetables or fruit with suggestions of leaves in green, blue, and red   To the left of these are a few random lines in blue, green, and red. There is another calligraphic symbol in red about a quarter turn to the left along the rim.  It is obviously of East Asian origin, and, given my purchasing habits in the 1980s and 1990s, it is probably Japanese, but it could well be Korean or Chinese.