Bowl with peonies and wisteria (Khalili S 160)

Bowl with peonies and wisteria (Khalili S 160)
Image: Khalili Collections (Khalili Foundation), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons · Source

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This bowl of 1900–1910 abandons figures altogether in favour of a profusion of flowers. The exterior is crowded with peonies in orange, white, purple, yellow and pink, painted so densely that the blooms almost cover the ground. Below runs a border of flower-heads and foliate scrolls. The interior offers a cooler contrast, with trailing purple and white wisteria hanging from the rim. The bowl is 15.3 centimetres in diameter and is now accompanied by a wooden stand.

Bowls of this deep form were a staple of the studio, and Bonhams has cited this example among the Khalili pieces comparable in size and shape to a deep bowl it sold in 2022. The contrast between the opulent exterior and the lighter interior is characteristic of Meizan’s sense of how a bowl is experienced in the hand. It is published in Impey and Fairley (1995), cat. 66, and Earle’s Splendors of Imperial Japan (2002), cat. 93.

Provenance

Khalili Collection of Japanese Art, London.

Literature

Impey and Fairley (eds.), 1995, cat. 66; J. Earle, Splendors of Imperial Japan, 2002, cat. 93, p. 150.