Exceptional Kuro Raku Chawan with perfect Kintsugi 1800 $ sold
It is commonly said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet, in the real world, there seems to be a fair amount of congruity about what people consider beautiful, with most arguments about particular instances being about degree, not direction. This chawan is pure beauty - no matter from which angle you look at it.
Slightly distorted cylinder shaped tea bowl with a rounded brim, made of light, coarse, unrefined Mino clay in the early Edo Period around 1620. The expertly thrown body was trimmed with a potters knife in its lower part and covered with a jet black iron oxide glaze inside and outside. A 'window' on the side has been left unglazed and is decorated with attached drying kaki (hoshikaki) in iron oxide under a shino type glaze. This is a popular Momoyama design.
Highlight of this chawan is obviously the expertly made kintsugi repair. Breathtaking.
The bowl comes with a very good wooden box.
Size: 9,2 cm height x 12,5 cm in diameter.
Shipping included.
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Ao Oribe Chawan of early Edo Period sold
Very little distorted cylinder shaped (hanzutsu) tea bowl with a rounded brim, made of little reddish, coarse, unrefined Mino clay. The expertly thrown body was trimmed with a potter's knife in its lower part and through the finger marks (rokuro-me) covered with an ash glaze inside and outside. The little iron oxide in the clay turned the glaze to light brown.
On two opposite sides, decoration has been applied under the glaze in iron oxide with a little white engobe. On the front you can find a water wheel and flying chidori, on the back vertical lines.
No cracks or repairs.
It comes with a good wooden box.
Size: 9,2 cm height x 12,4 cm in diameter. Shipping included.
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Kyo-Yaki Chawan by legendary Nin'ami Dohachi 1800 $
Impressive Japanese Kyo-yaki Chawan, hand molded by legendary Nin'ami Dohachi during the Edo Period. His signature is written on the bottom of the chawan.
It comes with an older wooden box. Size: 7,5 cm height x 14,8 cm in diameter.
Chawans of Nin’ami Dohachi are exhibited in the most important museums, for example the British Museum.
Nin’ami Dohachi II ( 仁阿弥道八 - born Takahashi Mitsutoki; 1783-1855) worked in Awata until he set up a kiln in Fushimi, near Kyoto, in 1842. Dohachi specialized in tea ceramics and was famous for his recreations of other style in stoneware and porcelain and his efforts to revive the Ninsei and Kenzan styles.
Besides his decorated raku tea bowls, his uncommon Kyo-yaki bowls are impressive, with the irregular, undulating rims, sometimes integrated into the decoration of white cherry blossoms(sakura) and red maple leaves(momiji).
Kyo-yaki is the term that, since the 19th century, has become widely used for stoneware and porcelain produced in and around Kyoto. Before this time, the wares were known by the names of the kilns where they originated, such as Awata-, Mizoro-,and Kiyomizu-yaki. Ceramics made in kilns in Kyoto before 1800 are also known as ko-Koizumi, but after 1800, the expression Kiyomizu-yaki refferd exclusively to porcelain produced in the district around the Kiyomizu temple. Today, Kiyomizu-yaki is often wrongly used for Kyo-yaki.
Kyoto, then called Heian-kyo, became the imperial capital in 794 and remained the seat of government for more than 800 years. When the Tokugawa Shogunate moved the capital to Edo (present-day Tokyo) in 1603, Kyoto remained the seat of the imperial dynasty, and the intellectual and religious center of Japan.
The production of ceramics in the Kyoto region has been documented since the end of the fifth century. In the eighth century, lead-glazed Narasansai was being made, and from the ninth to the twelfth century, it was mainly a monochrome green ware. With the increasing influence of the tea ceremony, potters from Seto who had settled in Awata, a district in Kyoto, produced tea utensils.
Present-day Kyo-yaki with its wide variety ranging from raku to stoneware and porcelain with underglaze and overglaze decolation developed in the late 16th-17th. Limited local clay deposits prevented from Kyoto any uniform kind of ceramics. Craftspeople made specious raw material that had to be shipped long distances. Furthermore, Kyoto attracted the most able artists and craftspeople from all parts of the country. In the long periods of peace during the Tokugawa Shogunate, the imperial family and the aristocracy sponsored the arts and maintained their own workshop, and also invited famous pottere to Kyoto. Thus, the development of ceramics in Kyoto was determined by a number of outstanding artistic personalities who not only set the trends with regard to styles in Kyoto but also far beyond. Against this background, raku-yaki, with its restrained color, developed under the influence of tea master Sen no Rikyu’s wabi aesthetic, while exquisitely colorful Kyo-yaki in stoneware and porcelain emerged in various forms to fulfill the demands of the tea master in the early 17th for more elegance in the tea ceremony (kirei-sabi, beautiful-sabi).
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Kuro Oribe Chawan of early Edo Period 750 $
Distorted shoe shaped (kutsugata) tea bowl with a flaring mouth made of light, coarse, unrefined Mino clay. The expertly thrown body was trimmed with a potters knife in its lower part and its brim. It dates back to the early Edo Period (1603-1868).
It is covered with a very deep black iron oxide glaze inside and outside. A 'window' on the side has been left unglazed and is decorated with two fish nets hung for drying.
On the other side w-shaped and was left unglazed and was decorated with parallel lines (one thick two thin). A very dramatic bowl.
It comes with a good wooden box.
Size: 9,5 cm height x 12,2 cm in diameter.
Shipping included.
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Ao Oribe Chawan with rare Cross Design 3500 $ sold
Here is a real beauty. Perfect in form, shape and design: Ao-Oribe (Green Oribe) Chawan from the early stage of Edo period. Little distorted half cylinder shaped (kutsugata) tea bowl with slightly flaring mouth made of light, unrefined Mino clay.
The expertly thrown body was trimmed with a potters knife and covered with the typical green copper oxide glaze inside and outside. Just the foot ring and its immediate surrounding were left unglazed (with the exception of a few spots of glaze).
A 'window' on the side has been left unglazed and is decorated with 3 Christian crosses on a fence.
Tea bowls and other tea related items with decoration of a Christian cross are known, BUT ARE VERY VERY RARE - chiefly for the reason that Christian religion became prohibited in the early Edo Period (1614 - the year in which Oribe pupil Takayama Ukon was expelled from Japan) and the prohibition was rigorously enforced (especially after the Shimbara rebellion in 1637) with death penalty - CONSEQUENTLY ALL EXISTING PEACES WERE DESTROYED.
Considering this political environment, the bowl was surely manufactured before 1614.
Beside our chawan there is another known tea bowl with cross design, which is exhibited in the Nanban Bunkakan Museum in Osaka, please refer to picture 9. For further information please read the book 'Turning Point - Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan', The Metropolitan Museum of Arts New York, Yale University Press New Haven and London.
The chawan comes with a good wooden box and a purple shifuku.
Size: 8,5 cm height x 10,8 cm in diameter.
Shipping included
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Spectacular Shigaraki Chawan of Edo Period 850 $
sold
Ash blasted and bursting with inclusions, this chawan comes with everything you could want from a perfect Shigaraki bowl. It dates from the late Edo Period (1603-1868). Over a terracotta clay burnt ash gray a smattering of pale flying ash provides the backdrop for molten drips of foggy green and orange shizen yu glaze. The shape conforms beautifully to the palm, showing the master skill of this important chawan.
It comes with an old wooden box with appraisal, a silk pouch (shifuku) and corner protections (hashira).
Size: 7,7 cm heigt x 13,7 cm in diameter.
Shipping included.
The local sandy clay from the bed of Lake Biwa has a warm orange color, and makes very durable pottery. This clay characterizes Shigaraki ware. The ceramics have irregular contours and an archaic flavor. Firing technique shifted from reduction to oxidation firing, which allows free admission of air during the firing rather than limited air admission into the kiln. This allows iron oxides to be used as part of the coloring process. The allowance of free air is due to the type of ancient kiln, called an anagama kiln, which is used to fire Shigaraki ware. The term anagama is a Japanese term meaning "cave kiln", as these kilns were usually constructed into the side of hills. They are single chambered structures with a sloping tunnel shape. The wood fuel must be constantly supplied in order to achieve temperatures high enough to fire the clay. Using this type of kiln also achieves the mineral glaze surface so popular with Shigaraki wares. Depending on the placement of the piece, the resulting coat of ash and minerals will vary. An oatmeal appearance is usually the result, with a greyish to a reddish-brown colorizing the body. Small impurities protrude, caused by embedded quartz partially fired. Covered with a thin layer of overrun yellowish-brown to a peach blossom red color glaze that crackles when fired is also characteristic of the fired stoneware. A light, transparent, or almost glass-like glaze with a bluish-green tint also appears on some Shigaraki wares. The glazes were dribbled, sprayed or spattered over the ceramic surface. Unless allowed to gather in small pools, the glaze appears near invisible in most lighting, only becoming visible when the piece is held and turned in the hand. The ware also reflects geta okoshi, the clog marks, where the clay rested on supports inside the kiln before firing.
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Edo Period Tea Bowl of greatest 1st Minpei Kashu 2900 $ sold
Wonderful Minpei/Awaji ware tea bowl made by the legendary 1st Minpei Kashu during the Edo Period, with deep glaze cracks and soft cobalt blue pictures. It comes with a signed wooden box and a signed and sealed attestation of Hasshu Uewashi, issue number 256. Hasshu Uewashi was a famous judge of Japanese pottery who worked during the Meiji and Taisho Era.
Awaji ware was founded in the early 1830s by Minpei Kashu (1796-1871) from Iga village.
He was born in 1796 into a wealthy trading family. Even when he was a little kid he was throwing Raku bowls, which where called ‚Iganoyaki‘.
Some years later he was a scholar of classical literature and skillful in the art of chanoyu. He became concerned about the development of industrial resources in his province and devoted himself to the manufacture of ceramics, which he had studied under Ogata Shuhei (1788-1839), a famous Kyoto potter. Returning to his village after his studies, he established kilns in the fifth year of Tenpō (1835/1836) and devoted his whole fortune to his enterprises. Some sources give an earlier founding year of 1831. Lord Hachisuka of Awaji Province subsequently subsidized Minpei's manufactory and appointed him head of the workshops. Thus his efforts were successful, and his manufactory reached a prosperity such that its production equaled in value the rice harvest of the eleven surrounding villages. After Minpei's death in the second year of Bunkyū (1862) his successors continued manufacturing ceramics, which became a source of wealth for the province.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has three pieces of Minpei ware in its permanent collection.
Ceramics of Kashu Minpei are very hard to find. They appear only on rare occasions for sale.
Size: 8 cm height x 11 cm in diameter.
Shipping included.
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Aka Raku Chawan with real Kintsugi by greatest Kichizaemon Tan-nyu sold
Antique Aka Raku Chawan by greatest Kichizaemon Tan-nyu, ennobled with a REAL kintsugi gold repair.
Half cylinder shaped (Hanzutsu) tea bowl with a rounded brim, in the typical hand built style of the Raku family. The body is fully covered with a white engobe before the red glaze was applied.
The red glaze turned to to grey where it got in contact with charcoal in the kiln. The bowl has a beautiful repair in real kintsugi (gold lacquer); it is signed next to the foot ring with Tan-nyu's seal.
The Kichizaemon family of potters was established in Kyoto by Chojiro during the Momoyama period (16th century). The 10th. generation head of the family (Tan-Nyu, 1795-1854) was born the second son of the 9th generation Kichizaemon. Along with Yoyosai assisted in the establishment of a kiln for the Kishu branch of the Tokugawa family, and soon followed that up with others around the country. This gave him tremendous experience throughout the world of Japanese ceramics with different clays and glazes, expanding the family repertoire into Oribe, Iga and Seto ware in addition to the traditional Kyoto wares. Works by him are held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art among many others.
The antique wooden box needs some reglueing. It is inscribed on the lid: Aka Chawan Kichizaemon Raku and Seal of Tan-nyu.
Size: 8,2 cm height x 12,5 cm in diameter.
Shipping included
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Splendid Kuro Oribe Chawan of early Edo Period 995 $
What a wonderful glaze. Slightly distorted shoe shaped (kutsugata) tea bowl from the early Edo period with a rounded brim, made of light, coarse, unrefined Mino clay. The expertly thrown body was trimmed with a potter's knife in its lower part around the foot ring.
In the style of Kuro-Oribe bowls this bowl was covered with a brown iron oxide glaze. A window on the side was left unglazed and split in two halves - one was decorated with iron oxide engobe which was decorated with incised floral lines, the other half was decorated with a sctch of flower and rectangles in iron oxide on the unglazed white clay, over which finally a transparent ash glaze was applied.
It comes with a very good wooden box.
Size: 8,3 cm height x 14,5 cm in diameter.
Free shipping
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Oni-Hagi Tsutsu Chawan of early Edo Period 1500 $
What an atmosphere, this is what the Japanese call wabi-sabi. Full cylinder shaped (Tsutsu) tea bowl with a rounded brim, made of light, very coarse, unrefined Hagi clay. The expertly thrown body was roughly trimmed with a potter's knife in its lower part. The rather high foot is traditionally cut in one place (so called 'wari kodai').
Our chawan was covered with an opaque glaze, which is a mixture of ash and feldspat. It shows a beautiful fine crazing from many years of careful use. Shape and design make it an excellent winter bowl.
It comes with a very old wooden box. One of the best Hagi chawans we have ever collected.
Size: 10,9 cm height x 9,9 cm in diameter.
Free shipping
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