Excavated from Kiln No. 89, Neura Kurozasa, Aza Fukuya, Miyoshi City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
10th century
Height 5.6cm, Bowl diameter 17.3-17.8cm, Bottom diameter 8.5cm
Aichi Prefectural Ceramic Museum
　This is a rather large-sized piece with carefully crafted arms made of white high-quality clay, probably from water. The base is also carefully crafted with a rectangular cross section and slightly stretched at the base, unlike commonly used arms of the same period. Clay cords are attached to the inner surface on five sides, and the outer surface is pressed to form a five-petaled ring flower. The inner surface is decorated with a four-petaled flower design on the inner rim in thin lines and a four-petaled flower design with thick lines on the prospective side. This type of inlaid peony design is representative of the design developed from the late 9th to the mid-10th century in ash-glazed pottery kilns in Owari, Mino, and Toei, centering on the Sanage kilns. In Japan, the semi-engraved floral decoration is found only on a few green-glazed vases excavated from the ruins of a Buddhist temple in the Xi Temple, and is usually expressed by fine wrought lines. Few vessels with this type of floral motif are ash-glazed, and those made of high-quality, well-watered clay, such as this vase, were probably fired as the base for green-glazed ceramics. The interior surface has been scraped with a pommel to make the vessel walls thin and even.
