Height 9.4 cm, mouth diameter 13.1 cm, bottom diameter 9.2 cm
Tokyo National Museum
This kyusu has an Araiso pattern on one side of the body and a sunflower and cloud pattern on the other side, both in a floating pattern. The carp in the Araiso pattern is left unglazed and the entire outside surface, from the base to the bottom, is covered with a yellow glaze. It is rare to find a kyusu with an Araiso pattern, but there are also few examples of so-called “kojiki” copies with a single yellow glaze.
Most kyusu and earthenware bottles copied from kojiki are made by die-cutting, and the body is made in two sections and joined at the center.
The body is made of thin, fine clay, so it is very light to handle, and the firing temperature is low because it is made of soft clay. The lid has a knob with a five-petaled flower design on the tip of the shaft, as is typical of kyusu made of wood or rice, surrounded by a cloisonne style floating pattern, and the pattern is covered with green and purple colored glaze. The back of the lid is in guttation form, with the seal “Moku ‘Yome’ (meaning ‘rice’ in Japanese) stamped in the center.
