This piece has found its home. It is kept here as a record of what has passed through our hands.
A set of five stoneware plates (shichisun-zara) by Kimura Yoshiro (b. 1946) — one of Japan's most distinguished living ceramic artists, and the originator of the glaze known as Kimura Blue.
Each plate, about 22 cm across, wears his signature heki-yu glaze: a breathing gradation from deep cobalt through luminous sky-blue, like sea and sky held in one surface. No two are alike — the glaze pools and settles differently on each during firing. Each is signed on the base, and the set came in its original wooden box (tomobako) with a turmeric-dyed cloth bearing the artist's seal.
Kimura's work is held by the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Sèvres ceramics museum in France, and Japan's National Crafts Museum.
