Tray

A cloisonné enamel tray of rounded rectangular form decorated in Rimpa style with a flowering prunus-stem growing from a gnarled tree-stump, a partially cloud-obscured moon in the background on a pale grey ground. The flowers are worked in musen and yusen techniques in varying tones of grey and white. Applied with a shakudo rim. The reverse scattered with numerous gilt wire flowers in tones of brown on a dark plum-coloured ground. Inscribed with the seal 'Korin'. Almost certainly Sosuke was working from a sketch attributed to or a print after the great Rimpa artist Ogata Korin (1658-1716). The technique of dripping wet paint on to wet paint (tarashikomi), typical of the Rimpa artists, is here brilliantly imitated in musen.