Shimizu Uichi (1926-2004) was a leading Kyoto-based artist who, in his later years, moved his workshop north of Kyoto to the western shore of Lake Biwa in Shiga Prefecture. He was renowned for his experiments into the recreation of historical Chinese ceramic types, notably iron brown glazes as seen on this dish. A member of the Japan Crafts Association (Nihon Kogeikai) since 1958, he was appointed a Living National Treasure in 1985, thereby achieving equality with his former teacher and mentor Ishiguro Munemaro (1893-1968), Japan's most celebrated exponent of early Chinese ceramic styles.

The enduring interest shown by Japanese makers in exploring historical Chinese ceramic styles goes back to the first decades of the twentieth century, when the excavating and looting of Chinese archaeological sites brought to light an extraordinary variety of ceramic types that had been largely forgotten about over the centuries. Just as these caught the imagination of western connoisseurs - for example George Eumorfopolous and his fellow founders of the Oriental Ceramic Society in London - they became the focus of intense study among Japanese scholars and collectors. For artists disenchanted with the legacy of Meiji period (1868-1912) export ceramics, they were a source of inspiration as fresh and exciting as the Korean ceramics and Japanese tea ceremony wares to which their eyes were similarly opened during the interwar years.