{"product_id":"pair-japanese-arita-charger-plates-celadon-sometsuke-sansui-hand-painted-landscape-yamatoku-kiln-wall-display-plates-blue-white-porcelain","title":"Pair Japanese Arita Charger Plates | Celadon Sometsuke Sansui | Hand-Painted Landscape | Yamatoku Kiln | Wall Display Plates | Blue White Porcelain","description":"\u003cp\u003eArita (有田) is where Japanese porcelain began. In 1616, the Korean potter Yi Sam-pyeong (李參平) discovered kaolin clay deposits near the town of Arita in Saga Prefecture, Kyushu — the same clay mineral that makes true porcelain possible. Within decades, the kilns of Arita were producing wares that would be exported across Asia and eventually to Europe via the Dutch East India Company, influencing the development of Delftware, Meissen, and every European porcelain tradition that followed. After more than four hundred years, Arita remains Japan's pre-eminent porcelain town, and its named kilns continue to produce pieces that carry that entire tradition in their technique.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis pair of charger plates comes from Yamatoku-gama (山徳窯), a named studio kiln in Arita whose mark — 有田 above, 山徳 below, painted in underglaze blue — identifies the maker with the same directness that a painter's signature identifies a canvas. The technique employed here is one of Arita's most refined and demanding combinations: seiji-ji sometsuke (青磁地染付), literally \"celadon-ground blue-and-white.\" The wide rim of each plate is glazed in celadon — a soft blue-green reduction glaze of the kind that Japanese potters inherited from Song dynasty China and spent centuries perfecting — while the central panel is reserved in white and painted in gosu (呉須), the cobalt blue pigment that produces the characteristic deep blue of classical Japanese sometsuke when fired at high temperature. Two different glazes, two different firing atmospheres, one unified composition: the cool celadon border focusing the eye inward toward the white field, where the painting lives.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe painting itself is a sansui-ga (山水画, \"mountain-water picture\") — the most prestigious genre in the East Asian literati tradition, practiced in ink on paper and silk for over a thousand years before being translated onto porcelain. This composition is complete: a tall waterfall descending past vertical rockfaces in the upper right; a small pavilion or gate structure at the water's edge; rocky islands and shore masses in the middle ground; two small sailboats on the river in the distance, barely suggested; billowing cloud formations to the upper left. The composition follows the classical tōzan-ryūsui (登山流水, mountain-and-flowing-water) formula — a visual shorthand for the Taoist and Zen ideal of the scholar's retreat into nature, away from the city and official life, into landscape that teaches humility and proportion.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach plate is accompanied by a black display stand for wall or shelf presentation. Displayed as a pair, they frame a central object beautifully — as seen in the lifestyle photograph, flanking a celadon vase on a sideboard. The symmetry of a matched pair creates a formal balance that a single plate cannot achieve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDimensions to be confirmed by seller before listing. Ships carefully packed individually from Hanoi, Vietnam, with full insurance. Pair sold together — not available separately.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Chikoyaki","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45514950639695,"sku":"CKY-CER-221","price":300.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0667\/6588\/1423\/files\/IMG_2250_result.jpg?v=1780737408","url":"https:\/\/chikoyaki.com\/products\/pair-japanese-arita-charger-plates-celadon-sometsuke-sansui-hand-painted-landscape-yamatoku-kiln-wall-display-plates-blue-white-porcelain","provider":"Chikoyaki","version":"1.0","type":"link"}