Nail Covers

These ceramic pieces seem to replicate inlaid metal cloisonné nail covers. They were biscuit fired before being given a coating of transparent glaze for a principal firing, and then decorated with polychrome paints, which were in turn fired onto the surface. Because gold paint cannot be fired together with other colors, these pieces must have passed through the kiln at least four times before completion.The nail covers were passed down in the Kyōgoku family of Muragame. A record of tea ware dating from 1695, when Kyōgoku Takamochi (1692–1724) was clan chief, contains the entry “thirty paired fans, Omuro overglaze enamel fanshaped nail covers”, of which seventeen are thought to correspond to these items. “Omuro” indicates that the pieces were produced in the kiln of the early Edo-period Kyoto-ware master craftsman Nonomura Ninsei, whose work was known as Omuro-yaki. The chrysanthemum-shaped nail covers are mentioned in the 1734 On’in onsukidōgu chō (Catalogue of Tea Ware), which dates from the period when Kyōgoku Takanori (1718–63) was domain chief.Although these small pieces bear neither seal nor signature, the broad range of overglaze colors—gold, silver, red, blue, green—closely resemble those on the Kyōgoku family’s collection of Omuro-yaki overglaze-enameled tea jars and clearly display Ninsei’s salient features.