Oviform with angled shoulder and body tapering towards the foot, decorated to the shoulder and to the upper section of the body with an incised L-shaped pattern and cream slip, against a mottled dark greenish-brown glaze, impressed mark of Shimaoka Tatsuzo to base
33.6 cm. (13¼ in.) high

Please note this lot is the property of a private consignor.

Published in: Mingei International Museum, Martha W. Longenecker, ed., Mingei of Japan: The Legacy of The Founders - Soetsu Yanagi, Shoji Hamada, Kanjiro Kawai, (California, 2006), p. 100

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For a dish with a similar style of inlaid decoration in the Brooklyn Museum, New York, go to:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/106987

Born in Tokyo in 1919, Shimaoka Tatsuzo graduated from the ceramics department of Tokyo Kogyo Daigaku [Tokyo Industrial University], moving after the war to the town of Mashiko in Ibaraki Prefecture where he became a student of Shoji Hamada, one of the founding fathers of the Mingei [Folk Craft] movement. In 1954 Shimaoka started his own kiln, maintaining a consistently high standard during a period when other kilns in the town became more commercialised. The most significant event in Shimaoka's creative life was his encounter with ceramics from the Jomon period. After many unsuccessful attempts to reinterpret Jomon designs in a manner that was sympathetic to Mingei ideals, Shimaoka eventually achieved a fusion of Jomon pattern-making with the Korean tradition of impressed slip decoration, as seen in the work offered here. He was also influenced by traditional English ceramics. Shimaoka received the Nihon Mingeikan [Japan Folk Crafts Museum] Prize in 1962 and in 1996 he was named Ningen Kokuho [Living National Treasure].