COLUMBIA

Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka

During a trip to Japan this past April,
Derek and I spent a day in Osaka. We'd been
travelling with non-potter friends for most of
two weeks and now we were on our own with
a chance to take in a ceramics museum at our
leisure. Talk about kids in a candy store.

Osaka was once the commercial capital of
Japan as well as being considered the “nation’s
kitchen,” known for okinomiyaki (pan-fried
batter cake,) takoyaki (octopus dumplings,)
udon (a noodle dish,) as well as the traditional
battera sushi. It’s not particularly known as a
cultural centre, but pottery is part of Japanese
life where ever you may be in the country, so
we were hopeful.

And then we found it—the Museum of
Oriental Ceramics. After a good 20-minute
walk down Mido-suji Ave from the Osaka
train station and many wrong turns looking
for the non-descript brick building we were
there. What a find!

The museum was built to house the entire
2,700-piece Ataka ceramics collection donated
by the Sumitomo Group in the early 80s. The
collection is made up mainly of Chinese,

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Porcelain snuff bottle, approx. 5 cm. high,
Oki Shoichiro Collection.

Korean and Japanese pieces dating all the
way back to the second century Eastern Han
Dynasty, including two National Treasures
and 13 Important Cultural Properties.

Just over 300 pieces of the collection are
on permanent display, along with one or two
short-term displays. When we were there
the featured exhibit room held a display of
snuff bottles (part of a 1,000-piece collection

Foot of vessel.

By Melany Hallam

donated last year)—mostly very tiny vessels

with incredibly intricate carvings or inlays, in-

cluding some made of stone or glass. Amazing.

I cant imagine the patience it must have taken

to create these vessels, many made of porcelain,

and it’s such a wonder that they survived the

firing! How could anyone use them for such a

mundane purpose as storing snuff?

‘There are a few things about this museum
that made the visit especially worthwhile:

* A few of the display cases were lit by natural
light via skylight. I don’t think I’ve ever
seen this in a ceramics museum before (not
that I’ve been to a huge number of them!)
and it really made a difference in seeing the
true colour of the glazes. Some really fine
celadon pieces.

¢ Although all of the display descriptions are
in Japanese, there were computer terminals
allowing you to look up the descriptions
in your language of choice. The look up
function was really user friendly and we
had no problem at all finding the pots
we were interested in and reading the full
descriptions. So instead of going away
knowing only that the vibrant red shallow
bowl with the beautiful blue glaze on the
inside is Jin Dynasty, 12th-13th century, I
also found out that this type of bowl may
have been specially ordered by the Huizong
emperor and that the period of origin is

Continued on Page 11, Debate

Stoneware bowl, China, Jin (or Song?) Dynasty, 12th-13th Century. Copper oxide over Jun
opaque blue glaze, fired in reduction. On the interior of the base are 15 spur marks and
the incised number ‘2°. Numbered Jun dishes and planters are formed with care, and are
thought to have been used for special purposes. There are pieces incised with numbers
from 1-10, with the size of the vessel becoming smaller as the number increases.

Potters Guild of BC Newsletter : October 2009

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