Grand plat (ōzara)

Arita (centre de production céramique)

This large-size dish, probably produced in a kiln in Arita, a town still famous for its ceramics in Japan, is made of a thick porcelain with crackle glaze. It is an example of the earliest type of Kutani ware, known as ko-Kutani (“old Kutani”), and of the aode style, mainly characterised by the use of four colours: dark green, yellow, dark blue and aubergine purple.
The decoration in the glaze features banana leaves and a butterfly standing out in sharp contrast over the yellow ground sprinkled with stylised chrysanthemums. On the underside, a repeated cloud motif on a light green ground entirely covers the surface, with the exception of the base. The simple but striking range of colours and contrast between the curved banana leaves and stiffer shape of the butterfly give this piece a dazzling intensity.
Towards the late 17th and 18th centuries, large-size dishes do not appear to have been used as tableware to contain food; they had an essentially decorative function, serving to present flower arrangements and ornamental fruit- or vegetable-based compositions.