Artist: Tomimoto Kenkichi
Date: 1940
Size: 9 x 15 cm
Technique: Porcelain
This sweet but dignified porcelain box is covered with an imaginary white flower, the idea for which the artist took from a type of vine. This is an early example of his use of this design. Tomimoto Kenkichi made this type of small, ornamental box frequently from the 1920s to the latter half of the 1930s. Originally, he decorated them with underglaze blue designs. Around 1936, he first devised the four-petaled floral design, which he continued to use until his late years. The work shown here is an early example in which he combined the small ornamental box format with the four-petaled floral design. Similar works made in the same year also exist, for example, in the Ohara Museum of Art. Tomimoto once told the ceramic artist Fujimoto Yoshimichi (1919-92) about this unique pattern, saying that he had originally conceived the idea from the white, five-petaled flower of the teikazura plant, but that he had changed it to four petals to make a consecutive design possible (Shozo meihin ten [Exhibition of masterworks from the collection], catalogue of the exhibition). It is a design of an imaginary object, therefore, and along with the fern pattern he also liked to use, it became a typical example of what came to be called his “overglaze enamel sarasa” designs. Tomimoto enrolled in the course of design at the Tokyo Fine Arts School in 1904. He served as professor thre from 1944 to 1946, but worked mostly in Kyoto after the war. This work was purchased in September 1982. (Writer : Jun’ichi Takeuchi Source : Selected Masterpieces from The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music: Grand Opening Exhibition, The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, 1999)
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