Deep Dish with Chrysanthemum in a Stream

The center of this deep, fluted dish features a large white chrysanthemum partially submerged in a flowing stream with a pair of geese flying nearby. This simple design—which was also a popular design for textiles of the time—is made using a variant of the porcelain technique sometsuke (designs painted in blue on white pottery) known as seiji (celadon) sometsuke. The artist first glazed the entire dish in blue-green celadon, scraped away the area that would become the stream and chrysanthemum to reveal the white beneath, painted the blue design with a brush, and then covered the entire dish with a final, clear glaze before firing.