A blue tailed birds rests lightly on branches laden with colored leaves on this beautiful porcelain work by Yamamoto Ichiyo enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Jun Purachina-sai Beni no Mori (Pure Platinum Glaze Red Forest). It is 13.3 cm (5-1/4 inches) diameter, 17 cm (7 inches) tall and in excellent condition.
Yamamoto Ichiyo was born in Nagasaki in 1944. He began his career at an Arita Porcelain ceramic facility in 1969. In 1974 he would spend a year in Taiwan studying porcelain before returning to Japan, where he would establish his own kiln in Imari the following year. He would begin research into platinum glazing in the mid eighties, garnering awards in Paris three years running (1986, ’87, ’88) after which he would move to Takatsuki on the border between Osaka and Kyoto, where he would immerse himself in cultural studies. In 1993 he would move to Hyogo prefecture, then would begin a period where his fame would grow, while his roots in any one place did not, only returning to Imari nearly a decade later in 2001. Since his work has been exhibited throughout Japan and abroad in such places as Valencia, Los Angeles, New York and San Diego.
