Rectangular Dish

The rectangular shape of this dish mirrors that of a poetry slip (tanzaku). Tanzaku dishes were first made by Ogata Kenzan in the seventeenth century. The iris motif on this dish attributed to Ogata Ihachi alludes to a scene from the tenth-century classic Tales of Ise (Ise Monogatari). In one of the episodes, the protagonist, the exiled Kyoto courtier and poet Ariwara no Narihira, pauses near the “eight bridges” (yatsuhashi) in the iris marshes of Mikawa Province to compose a poem on the life he left behind. Depicted in the typical Rimpa style, the episode is here reduced to blue irises set against a white background, a motif that proved to be very popular on ceramics, folding screens and lacquerware.