Small Korean style moon-vase with squared shoulder and short, flaring neck. Fine stoneware covered with milky white glaze, decorated in underglaze iron brown and iron red with flowers. Three on one side, a single flower on the opposite side.
Unmarked. Museum inventory number on bottom L75.30.4
By Kato Kiyonobu, Japan, 1975 or shortly before.
H 3.8 x diam. ca. 3.8 in.
Excellent condition
Comes with a wooden storage box inscribed on the cover: ..sometsuke, kotsubo. Signed: Kiyonobu. Red seal: Kiyonobu.
Kato Kiyonobu was born 1936 in Kyoto. He was a pediatrician by profession. He learned traditional ceramic techniques from broken pieces.
This vase was featured in the Brooklyn Museum of Art exhibition “Physician as Potter: Ceramics & Watercolors by Kiyonobu Kato” which ran from July 3 through September 19, 1976. This and other pieces were on loan to the museum and both the item and the box carry the temporary inventory number L75.30.12 (L for Loan, 75 for 1975). The box clearly is mismatched with the piece. The switch happened while several pieces from the exhibition were in a previous owner’s custody.
