Kenzan: tea bowl with plum tree design, underglaze brown and blue

Kenzan: tea bowl with plum tree design, underglaze brown and blue

Height 7.8 cm, mouth diameter 10.2 cm, base diameter 5.3 cm
Umezawa Memorial Museum
 Many of Qianzan’s tea bowls have ordinary shapes. Since he mainly used the body of his teacups to express paintings and poems, he probably chose this simple form. It is a semi-tubular tea bowl with a low base and a gently rounded but almost flat inner surface. The body is painted with a picture of an old plum tree with many buds in strong brush strokes, and the tips of the branches are extended to form what is called a spear plum tree. The painting is strong and graceful, and is considered to be a twin of the “Tea Bowl with Waterfall Landscape”. The trunk is painted in iron and the buds in gouzu, and on the back is inscribed “Zoka ‘Gong Cheng Rabbit’” with a poem inscription “Qianshan Provincial Lunch” and a calligraphy seal “Shouko” inside the square.

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