Page 145 - Japanese Art Nov 9 2017 London

(signature)

249 FINE JAPANESE ART | 143
A STONEWARE TEABOWL
By Shimizu Uichi (1926-2004), Heisei era (1989-), 1990s
A wide low teabowl, the thinly potted brown stoneware body entirely
covered in a kairagi glaze, stamped just above the footring with the
maker’s seal; with a wood tomobako storage box inscribed outside
Chawan 茶盌 (Teabowl) and signed inside Uichi 卯一 with a seal
Shimizu 清水.
5.6cm x 16.5cm (2¼in x 6½in). (2).

£3,000 - 5,000
JPY440,000 - 740,000
US$4,000 - 6,600

Provenance
Carlo Maria Suriano collection.

Published
Christine M. E. Guth, ‘The Aesthetics of Rayskin in Edo-period Japan:
Materials, Making and Meaning,’ Impressions, 37 (2016), (88–107),
p.99 (fig.11).

A pupil of Ishiguro Munemaro (1893-1968) and named a Living
National Treasure in 1985, Shimizu Uichi was especially admired, like
his teacher, for experimental recreations of historical glazes. In this
case he emulates the ‘crawling’ texture seen in many bowls imported
into Japan from Korea during the sixteenth century, including the
National Treasure Kizaemon bowl in the Nezu Museum, Tokyo. The
poetic term kairagi (plum-blossom bark), applied to this type of glaze,
was also used in the Edo period to describe the surface of rayskin;
see the article by Christine Guth cited above, p.100.

For details of the charges payable in addition to the final Hammer Price of each Lot
please refer to paragraphs 7 & 8 of the Notice to Bidders at the back of the catalogue.