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Ceramic Feature

Japanese-made porcelain
The title is Sometsuke Umemon Meshiwan (染付梅文飯碗).

This is a bowl created by Nakao Hidezumi.
Meshiwan is a Japanese rice-bowl, whose mouth is wide to hold lots of rice and makes it easier for us to eat.

This is an Arita ware bowl which Hidezumi-san has created.
He colored blue the outside of the plum blossom's line by a brush.

Sometsuke (染付)
- A pottery with blue pictures and patterns on a white background-

It refers to the skill of blue-painting on a unglazed ceramic.
Patterns are painted with a "gosu" containing cobalt oxide that turns blue color.
And it's baked after being glazed on top of it.

Sometsuke has been made from the early days of Arita ware in 1610s.
At first it was influenced the Chinese pottery, there's a pile of efforts by potters and
today's sometsuke has one kind of exquisite beauty even in its simplicity.