65. Richly decorated and with stylish houou birds

This attractive small four lobed vase is covered with lovely details. There are two main panel decorations each repeated twice. One panel style has a houou bird, the other panel style is filled with butterflies of different sizes.  Between the panels there are many floral decorations created in several styles.

One interesting area to look at is the Houou Bird 鳳凰 (ほうおう). The pictures below show the design at two scales. The use of colour within the feathers is superb, and certainly more ambitious than that we have seen on the houou birds from many previous objects.

The two larger butterflies also have a great deal of detail, and there are many others shown at smaller sizes. The overall impression is of a lively garden scene.

One other interesting design area is seen at the base and at the neck. In those areas there is an attractive five petal floral design with five interior petals. This has been seen before on a very different object, the ceramic cloisonne pot of object 61. Did the first object inspire the second, did they have a common inspiration, or is it coincidence?

This object has several other noteworthy design elements but they can be left for later discussion.

Object 65. Vase    height 13.1 cm   weight 146 gm.

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