Japanese Trompe-loeil Ceramic Basket Bowl w Chestnuts
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On offer is a charming visual amusement -- two chestnuts lying in a green twist-rope handled basket. Except that neither is what it seems to be, and everything is ceramic -- the basket actually a glazed dish or bowl and the chestnuts so lifelike in coloring and shading and even texture, that your first touch is followed by another disbelieving feel. The handles and exterior, as you run your fingers across them, are three-dimensional in weave and twist -- not flat -- so that the eye continues to be fooled as it moves about. The interior is lined with a very pale green glaze and amazingly you can see and feel the weave beneath it. I have never before held another such piece of trompe-l'oeil work, such a carefully worked-out bit of talented trickery. I've seen Este work but the attempt t appears to be to show how figs or pickles or nuts can be copied in ceramic and you are clearly aware that they aren't real. In this case the ploy is utterly convincing and the effort on your part -- and it takes effort -- will be to accept that they aren't real after all. The dealer I purchased it from mentioned that it was very likely from a Japanese firm famed for such work, and he mentioned a particular pottery which he said often does not mark its wares; but of course I was too intrigued by the cleverness of the piece as I stood holding it in the
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