Teabowls

As I have written about my dislike of Western raku elsewhere, I felt that I ought to start with a Japanese raku teabowl by Ito Keiraku.



The Kanji on the front of the teabowl reads, "Chin-ju" i.e Long Life.
.......... and here is the foot that is most important to a Japanese person looking at a teabowl.



and the outside of the box : -

A couple of yunomis with a Tatsuzo Shimaoka square dish as a backdrop. All gone now and I don't have any other images.



Both yunomis had signed wooden boxes. I sold the one on the right (Shoji Hamada - without the ?) and the square dish for a fair market price but the cut Hagi yunomi on the left by Kaneto Masanao I priced and sold for 2 or 3 times less than I should have done. That's how you learn.

Shimaoka was Hamada's oppo then took over his Living Treasure post until he died at the end of 2007. The vacancy is still open.

Is there only one Living Treasure at a time then?

skipposal wrote:Is there only one Living Treasure at a time then?

I was going to say, "Yes like with the Pope" but we have two of those at the moment.

The Japanese "Living National Treasure" system was started (they might argue revived) in the 1950s and is not confined to ceramics.

With pottery they decided to bestow this title on who was classed as the leading exponent of a pottery style and that person kept the title until their death. At that point if there was someone classed as having sufficient skill to take over the position then the title was bestowed upon them. This isn't done immediately and may not be done for a number of years.

Bizen, which is a wood fired style of pottery and was one of the important "Six Ancient Kilns" of Japan has had the most "Treasures" - now on their fifth and you will see from the list below where I have shown the period that each was in that position that there are 2/4 year gaps between them: -

Toyo Kaneshige 1956 - 1967
Kei Fujiwara 1970 -1983
Toshu Yamamoto 1987 - 1994
Yu Fujiwara (Kei's son) 1996 - 2001
Jun Isezaki 2004 -

Has anyone ever seen this mark before please?

I'm assuming it's Japanese and a Shino glaze?

The slippery slope Potty!

It is a shino glazed chawan from Japan and the incised mark is a typical type of mark that an individual potter would use on this type of pottery. It isn't that distinctive being like a number of such marks so I think it will be difficult to attribute to a specific maker (I'll keep my eye open though).

This type of ware, with underglaze painted decoration, is made around Mino in eastern Gifu Prefecture, although not exclusive to that region.

I have a Japanese Bizen pot, it could be a Chawan, but I've always called it... a Bowl

Feel free to remove this post if it's not a Chawan.



Bowl or Chawan, place your bets now!

The teabowl below is something that I don't think that I would ever consider selling.

A few years ago the "Gnarly Dudes" did make the use of shells on wood-fired pots a bit of a cliche but this is the real thing - a wood fired chawan from Shigaraki by Hajimu Kato.



Kato's mark is at 11 o'clock in the last picture under the ash.

Potty wrote:I don't think I own any

All of my bowls are well... just bowls

Wrong!

Potty wrote:Great bowl... hmm... Chawan! SP

It's a bit flash for a Shigaraki teabowl really but it must be wonderful to put a raw unglazed bowl into a kiln and finish with all of that going on.

Potty wrote:

Potty wrote:I don't think I own any

All of my bowls are well... just bowls

Wrong!

............ and I hate to tell you this but the vase in between isn't a vase.............. it's a tokkuri (sake bottle). Your new word for the day.

Unmarked but presumably Japanese (?) stoneware teabowl I got from my local Antique Centre. Can SP tell me anything about it I wonder . 6.4cm (height)

Never quite sure if they are tea bowls or chawans but my mother called them tea bowls



Philip Leach

chawans are tea bowls