Utsutsugawa is a high-fired and delicately potted stoneware made at a kiln founded near Nagasaki at the end of the seventeenth century. These dishes are from a set used for the light meal served before a tea ceremony. The sides were cut off to make the shape more interesting. Cloud patterns are dabbed on with white slip and wisteria blossoms painted in white slip and a touch of underglaze-blue are elegantly suspended against the plain brown ground, which is then covered with a clear glaze. For similar examples see Nagatake Takeshi, Japanese Ceramics from the Tanakamaru Collection (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979), pl. 24; Nagatake Takeshi, Tanakamaru Korekushon: Kyushu kotoji mehinten (The Tanakamaru Collection: Masterpieces of Kyushu ceramics) (Seto: Aichi Prefectural Museum of Ceramics, 1985), pl. 98; Goto Shigeki, Edo, vol. 1, Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 4 (Tokyo: Kawade shobo, 1956), fig. 69.