A rare Kakiemon Kendi with molded Karako figure

Description:

Japan, Arita ware, Edo period, late 17th century (ca. 1670-1700)
H. 19,3 cm
Porcelain, delicately crafted, spherical with a high, cylindrical neck and short, tapering spout. The shoulder has a moulded rim. The body depicts a laughing karako (Chinese boy) in high relief surrounded by vines. Painted in underglaze cobalt blue and overglaze iron red on a bright milky white glaze.
From an old German diplomatic collection, by descent to the present owners
This elegant kendi is an example of the refined Arita export porcelain produced for the Dutch East India Company in the late 17th century. The original Südost Asian Kendi shape was translated here into fine Japanese hard porcelain, which is characterised by the purity of its glaze and its harmonious design. The restrained colour palette of blue and red embodies the early Kakiemon style. He favours white surfaces and painterly asymmetry over dense Imari ornamentation. The applied figure of a laughing karako in high relief is a particular rarity. It lends the vesseläßs surface a sculptural quality that exemplifies the virtuosity of the Arita workshops around 1680. A closely related pair of kendi, each applied with a Hotei figure, was auctioned at Christie's: comparable examples are illustrated in: Soame Jenyns, Japanese Porcelain, London, 1965, plate 53B (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge), and Nihon Tōji Taikei, vol. 20, Kakiemon, Tokyo, 1978, plate 68.*
See also the example in the Macdonald Collection, Gardiner Museum, Toronto, dated circa 1675-1685, with äsimilar form and colour palette - part losses to the enamel, minimally dam.