ZETTERQUIST  GALLERIES

Black Oribe Kutsugata Teabowl “Yama no Ha”

Momoyama - Early Edo PeriodPeriod, Early 17th c., Japan

Diameter: 14cm

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A “Kutsugata” (shoe-shaped) stoneware teabowl covered with a rich, unctuous black glaze. The flattened front of the bowl is reserved in a finely crackled white slip with a clumping of seven circles encasing a geometric hourglass formed of two triangles joined at their points. (This design is based on “chikiri”; winding the warp on a loom). The glaze stops well short of the foot, a flattened donut shape, slightly off center on the broadly conical bottom. The unglazed bottom reveals of brown stoneware clay body. The bottom of the bowl has been inscribed in dark red by the 13th generation Omotesenke tea master Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901-1979), who has also inscribed the box, “Yama no Ha” (Mountain’s Edge)
A similar piece, but with two larger ishidatami roundel decorations, is published in “Turning Point; Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan”. Metropoitan Museum of Art - Yale University Press 2003. Pl. 53
Provenance:
Mujin Sousa “Sokuchusai” (1901 - 1979)
Private Japanese Collection