Today, Shino tea bowls are highly valued, but they are not an old, traditional type of tea bowl. When the Taisho Meiki Kan (A Guide to Famous Tea Bowls of the Taisho Period) was compiled by Takahashi Yoshio of the Ametsuan school over 40 years ago, there were only nine Shino, Oribe and Kiseido tea bowls listed, of which only six were Shino. The tea master Obian, who was from Nagoya, put all his energy into compiling the book, and he made a great effort to find famous bowls, but despite this, there were only six Shino bowls included in the book. Of course, it is not that Obian did not know where the Shino tea bowls were, but it is clear that this reflects the fact that at the time, the general public’s appreciation of Shino was not very deep.
The love of Shino tea bowls was probably greatly enhanced by the publication in 1936 of “Shino, Kiseido, Oribe”, a book edited by Morikawa Kanichiro of the Jochuan temple. The 18 Shino tea bowls that have survived to the present day are all included in the original color plates of this book, and it can be said that the appreciation of Shino tea bowls in Japan today was enlightened by this labor of love. After that, Shino gradually came to be re-evaluated by researchers and potters, and naturally the appreciation of it among tea ceremony enthusiasts also increased, and we have reached the present day.
Incidentally, if we take a quick look back at the history of appreciation of Shino tea bowls, it is natural that they were popular works at the time, as they were tea bowls from the Momoyama period, but after the early Edo period, and especially after the Enshu period, the appreciation of tea bowls appreciation was clearly biased towards Koryo tea bowls, followed by Raku tea bowls from the time of Rikyu, and then Karatsu and Hagi, and it seems that there was little interest shown in Shino or Oribe. As a result, it was not included in any of the famous tea bowls or famous tea bowls from the middle of the Edo period, and it is not mentioned in any of the representative famous tea bowl records from the Edo period, such as the ‘Enshu Zocho’, ‘Kanko Meibutsu Ki’ or ‘Chukyo Meibutsu Ki’. For this reason, it was almost never mentioned in the tea gatherings of the daimyo, and it is thought that this significantly lowered the status of Shino.
Although this was the general trend during the Edo period, it was surprisingly well-loved by some tea ceremony enthusiasts, particularly among the merchant class. As one example, it is known that the “Uka-tsubo” style was passed down to the Togaki family, a wealthy merchant family in Edo that prospered from the Genroku to the Genbun periods, and several bowls were also passed down to the Konoike family in Osaka. It could even be said that they were people’s tea bowls. However, even so, they were only a small fraction of the number of Korean tea bowls and Raku tea bowls that were produced.
It is also worth noting that three Shino tea bowls were added to the collection of the daimyo tea master Matsudaira Fumai at the end of the Edo period. These were the Shino tea bowl, the Asahagi tea bowl and the Umegaka tea bowl, which are listed in the “Famous Items” section of the Unshu Meibutsu Ki (Famous Items of Unshu). ‘s own discernment, it can be said that the recognition of Shino tea bowls has increased at least since the time of the ‘Kanko Meibutsu Ki’, but this is probably a reflection of the fact that the tea bowls were collected by the lord through the mediation of a dealer.
It was not until the modern era that the beauty of Shino tea bowls was recognized both in name and in reality, and it was not until they were appreciated by tea ceremony enthusiasts such as Mitsui Takayasu and Masuda Don’o that they became widely known. Meanwhile, the efforts of people such as Arakawa Yuzo to reproduce Koshiro tea bowls also had a great influence on the way they are known today.
The tea bowls in this volume include Seto Tenmoku, Seto Hakutenmoku, Seto Kuro, Kise, Kuro Oribe, Aka Oribe, and Haku-an, but it is clear that Shino is the mainstay.
Tenmoku from the Muromachi period
The appreciation of Karamono Tenmoku tea bowls, represented by Yohen Tenmoku and Yuiteki, reached its peak during the Kitayama and Higashiyama periods, and Yohen and Yuiteki in particular were so highly prized that they were said to be worth 10,000 or even 50,000 mon.
By the way, the tastes of the times naturally encouraged the appearance of imitations in our pottery kilns, and the production of imitations began in the pottery kilns of Owari and Mino. However, it is not clear when the production of Tenmoku tea bowls in Seto began. According to excavations of old kiln sites, it is said to date back to the early Muromachi period, but it does not appear in major records from the Muromachi period until the Tenbun era, so it is thought that general demand also increased around that time.
The representative Muromachi-period Japanese-style tenmoku that have been recorded are Ise tenmoku, Seto tenmoku, and Hakutenmoku, but the production area of Seto tenmoku is relatively clear, and it is thought that this was probably produced in Seto, Owari. Various speculations have been made about the production areas of Ise tenmoku and Hakutenmoku, but the actual production areas have not been determined. As mentioned above, Seto Tenmoku and Ise Tenmoku did not become widely used until around the end of the Muromachi period (1532-1555), but there is a record that the founder of the Wabi-cha school, Murata Shuko, who died in 1502, used Ise Tenmoku during his lifetime, about 30 to 40 years earlier. This is recorded in the ‘Zenpo Shingaku Danghi’ by Zenpo Kanpū, in which Shuko talks about his own tea ceremony.
…The kettle, the yōko, the water jar and the water scoop should be made of Ise or Bizen ware, but if they are skillfully made, they will be superior.
It is thought that the “Ise ware” referred to in this passage may have been Ise Tenmoku.
Leaving aside the Shuko period for the time being, in the Shouou period, which can be said to have been the Tenbun era, Seto Tenmoku and Ise Tenmoku were used as tea bowls alongside Karamono Tenmoku.
In other words, in the “Reiun Zen’in Jūjū Kōwari” (1548), there is a mention of “Ise Tenmoku”, and six years later, in the “Chagu Bitoshu” (1554) compiled by Ikkōken Sōkin, there is a mention of “Seto Tenmoku” and “Hakutenmoku”.
In particular, the Seto Tenmoku
Seto Tenmoku, from Owari, with a border of either stone or tin,
suggesting that Seto Tenmoku with a border of either stone or tin was used, and when compared to the fact that Chinese imports mainly had a gold border or a soft-tempered border, it seems that Seto Tenmoku was of a lower quality.
Furthermore, in the book “Nihon Ikkan” written by Zheng Shun Gong of China around the Eiroku era
there is an introduction to the meaning that the price of Seto Tenmoku is high because beautiful pottery is not made in Japan. However, the fact that it was recorded by a Chinese person shows that the pottery of Owari, including Seto Tenmoku, was quite popular at the time.
Next to Seto Tenmoku, Ise Tenmoku often appears in tea ceremony records, and in the “Reiun Zenin Jyuzo Giwari” (Inventory of the Equipment of the Reiun Zen Temple, a sub-temple of Myoshinji Temple in Kyoto), which can be considered a list of equipment,
Ise Tenmoku with silver rim
is mentioned first, and in the “Tsuda Sōkyū Chayū Nikki” (Diary of Tea and Tea Ceremony by Tsuda Sōkyū)
Ise tea bowl, December 12th, 1561, morning, Kanataya Sobei meeting
Ise tenmoku white, January 11th, 1567, morning, Dojo meeting
and also in the “Imai Sohkyu tea ceremony extracts”
Ise tenmoku, February 20th, 1568, morning, Ryusen meeting
In addition, the “Kamiya Sotan Diary” records five occasions between January 18th and June 25th of the same year, including “white Ise tenmoku”, “Ise tenmoku”, “tenmoku haise shinya”, and “Ise tenmoku shin”. In particular, the tea ceremony held on the morning of June 25th is recorded as
Ise tenmoku shin, June 25th, 1587, Hakozaki Kanpaku-kai
, and it is known that the tea bowls were used at a tea ceremony held by the regent Hideyoshi Toyotomi.
From the above, it is clear that Ise Tenmoku was used as a top-class tea bowl for about 40 years from the Tenbun era to the Tensho era, and that there were both black and white tea bowls. However, for some reason, there are no surviving examples of the Ise Tenmoku tea bowls that I have heard of, and it is not clear what kind of tea bowls they were. However, in the book “Kefusou”, which was compiled in 1638 by Matsue Shigeyori, a genius haiku poet of the time, it is mentioned as a specialty of Mino Province,
Seto ware tea caddy with a lid made of tea leaves, called Ise Tenmoku, is also said to be from this country,
and this is a notable answer that gives us a clue as to where Ise Tenmoku was produced.
The reason why the tenmoku ware made in Mino was called Ise tenmoku is thought to be because the Ise Goshi (Ise priests) at the time had close ties with the Mino region, and ordered tenmoku ware from Mino to serve the visitors to the Ise Shrine from various countries, and these were called Ise tenmoku (see Mitsuoka Tadanari, “The Japanese and Pottery”).
Furthermore, Mino ware bowls from the Muromachi period have been excavated from kiln sites such as Hisajiri, Gotomaki, Jōrin-ji, and Akasaba, and bowls with white glaze from the Tenshō to Keichō periods and beyond have been excavated from kiln sites such as Ōgaya, Ōhira, and Motoyashiki (see Arakawa (see Arakawa Toyozo, Shino), it is probably safe to assume that the “Ise Tenmoku Shiro-iro” used in 1566 and the “Shiro Ise Tenmoku” used by Ikeda Iyo on the night of January 18th, 1587 (as recorded in the Sotan Diary) were fired in one of these kilns.
Therefore, it is thought that the Seto Tenmoku and Ise Tenmoku used during the Muromachi period were probably made in Seto and Akazu, as the Chagu Bitoshuu (Tea Utensils Collection) tells us, and that the Ise Tenmoku was probably just a common name for Mino Tenmoku, but further research is needed to confirm this.
Something that must be considered in relation to Ise Hakutemoku is the Hakutemoku that is said to have once belonged to Takeno Jouou. Two bowls of this tea bowl are currently in existence, one of which is a tea bowl that belonged to the Owari Tokugawa family, and the other is a tea bowl that belonged to the Kaga Maeda family. The tea bowl that belonged to the Maeda family has the inscription “Shōō Seto Haku-tenmoku” written by Sen no Rikyū, and there is also a letter from Rikyū to the Yakushin-in temple in Sakai attached to it.
It is clear that Shōō possessed this tea bowl, and it is therefore certain that it was made before his death in 1555.
It is clear that Shōō owned them, and so it is also certain that they were fired before the year of his death, 1555.
Both bowls are of the same type, and it is thought that they were fired at the same kiln at around the same time, but it is not clear where they were fired, and they are works that are attracting attention among researchers today.
According to Arakawa Yuzo’s book Shino, “Unfortunately, the kiln that fired the Shirotenmoku owned by Shōō has not yet been discovered, but it is almost certain that it was an early example of Shino…” explains that the reason why they are the origin of Shino is that “we can’t say for sure whether these two tea bowls were fired in Seto or Mino, but from the glaze, they are definitely not Kiseido. They are feldspar glaze. They may have been fired with some ash mixed in, but the Tokugawa family’s tea bowls were probably fired without being placed in a kiln, and were fired naked in an open-air kiln…” However, the kiln used to fire the pottery is unknown, and he states that “in addition to Kise-do and Tenmoku, there are also a very small number of Shino pieces, so I feel like I want to investigate the kilns at Jōrin-ji and Gotōmaki more closely.”
By the way, as mentioned above, according to my theory that Ise Tenmoku and Ise Tenmoku Shiro are Mino ware, if these two bowls of Shiro Tenmoku are Mino ware, they are from a later period than the Ise Tenmoku Shiro of 1566, and if Shiro Tenmoku is the beginning of Shino, then Ise Shiro Tenmoku is also from the beginning of Shino. The problem here is that Rikyu refers to the Hakutemoku as “seto”, but in this case, “seto” was not referring to the Seto ware from Owari, but rather was a common term used at the time, as can be seen in the “Kefukiso” where Mino pottery is referred to as “setoyaki”, and in the tea ceremony records from the Momoyama period, where all Mino pottery is referred to as “seto”. Likewise, it is thought that the term “Ise Tenmoku” was used to refer to Mino Tenmoku produced in Ise. In other words, it can be understood that some Mino Tenmoku had a special character in Ise.
In any case, the major issue regarding Muromachi-era Tenmoku tea bowls is the need to re-examine the extant works, and there are many things that are unclear at present. In addition to the tea bowls listed in this volume as Seto Tenmoku, the Taisho Meiki Kan also mentions the “Kose Tenmoku” from the Owari Tokugawa family, the “Kitenmoku” from the Murayama family, and the “Kitenmoku” from the Maeda family. In addition, the tea bowls listed in volume 7 of the Sekai Toji Zenshu (Complete Collection of World Ceramics) are memorable for their excellent workmanship.
Seto tea bowls from the Momoyama period
From the end of the Muromachi period through the Momoyama period, the term “Seto ware” is often found in many tea books and tea diaries. In particular, Seto tea bowls, along with Chojiro’s Raku tea bowls, which were generally called “Ima-yaki” at the time, were the stars of Japanese tea bowls at tea ceremonies in the Momoyama period.
The use of Seto tea bowls increased rapidly from around 1586, and they reached their peak. However, most of the Seto tea bowls used here were not the so-called Owari Seto ware, but rather were made in kilns scattered throughout the Toki and Kani districts of Mino. Therefore, in this case, Seto tea bowls are what we might call Mino Seto ware, as described in the “Kefukusa” text, but it is thought that at the time, the term was used as a general term for both Mino and Owari pottery, without distinguishing between the two.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, in Mino, from the latter half of the Muromachi period, yellow Seto ware with a Tenmoku or Kikuzara-te pattern was produced, and the groundwork for the spectacular flowering of the Momoyama period had already been laid, but the direct influence on this flowering was the result of the migration of Owari Seto potters, who received patronage after Oda Nobunaga’s conquest of the Nobi region . Furthermore, the unification of the nation by Hideyoshi stabilized the hearts and minds of the people, and the tea masters, who were mainly from the towns of Sakai and Kyoto, played a leading role in the tea ceremony of the time, so it was only natural that their products were supplied to meet the demands of the cities along the economic routes, and the industry flourished as never before. Furthermore, the active encouragement of the two great tea masters Sen no Rikyu and Furuta Oribe, who defined the tea styles of the early and late Momoyama periods, also played a major role in the new forms coming into the limelight of the times.
Setoguro, Shino, Kiseido and Oribe were born from the above-mentioned environment, but as can be seen in the above-mentioned excerpt from the tea ceremony records, they were not divided into categories as they are today, but were all treated as “Seto tea bowls”. Therefore, it is almost impossible to tell which Seto tea bowls were used at which tea ceremony and when. However, for example, in the tea ceremony held by Rikyu at the Jyurakudai Palace in Kyoto on the 10th day of the 9th month of the 18th year of the Tensho era,
the black tea bowls on the stand were replaced with Seto tea bowls, and the black tea was served in such a way that the lord of the land would be pleased.
As noted in the tea ceremony record by Sōtan Kamiya, it is thought that the black tea bowls that were replaced by Rikyū were probably white or yellow glazed, or perhaps they were the so-called Shino tea bowls.
It is also thought that the ‘white tea bowl’ used at Ishida Mitsunari’s tea party in Hakata on November 23rd, 1608, and the ‘white Seto tea bowl’ used by Matsuya Hisamasa in Nara on April 18th, 1609, as recorded in the Koori Densho, were probably Shino.
What is also interesting is that the Sotatsu Diary records the scene of a tea party held by Furuta Oribe in Fushimi on the morning of February 28th, 1609, as
Shoulder-shaped cups, Seto cups, water jars, and when drinking tea, Seto tea bowls, Hizumi cups, Heukemono cups, and shoulder-shaped cups are old-fashioned
and the “Sotan Diary” records that Furuta Oribe held tea ceremonies using mostly Seto-yaki tea utensils, and that he used tea bowls with distorted shapes (a comical appearance), and it is thought that these must have been Oribe-kuro tea bowls , and furthermore, this type of warped Seto tea bowl was also used at a tea ceremony held by Kuroda Chikuzen (Nagamasa) in Kanaoka on the morning of the 8th of the 2nd month of the 9th year of the Keicho era, and Kamiya Sotan also wrote that “the tea bowls are Seto and have a bulge”.
From these tea ceremony records, we can see that Shino-style wares were used in 1590, and that Oribe-style black tea bowls were used in 1601, but this does not allow us to judge the full picture.
Of the Seto tea bowls from the Momoyama period, it is said that Setoguro was the first to be produced, with the exception of Tenmoku. However, since Setoguro, Shino and Kiseido are all excavated from the same kiln sites, it is thought that there is not much difference in time, and it is more appropriate to consider the firing period by the change in style, such as the shape and pattern of all of them, but here we will only discuss the characteristics of each type.
Setoguro
According to the common theory, Setoguro is also called “Rikyu-guro” or “Tensho-guro”, and is said to be an old type of Mino Seto ware. However, it is not clear when they were first called Rikyu-kuro or Tensho-kuro, and the term Rikyu-kuro in particular seems to have been used to refer to the tea bowls of Chojiro ware rather than Seto-kuro, and it is thought that the terms were probably used interchangeably only in recent years. In old records, they are all referred to as “Seto tea bowls”, and although there was a term called “Seto-kuro tea bowls” in the Keicho era, this did not refer only to Seto-kuro, but also to black tea bowls made in Seto, and it can be said that this term naturally included Oribe-kuro and Kuro-Oribe as well.
The style is mostly simple, with either a half-cylindrical or cylindrical shape, and one of the characteristics is that the foot is shaved down to such a low level that it is not even necessary to hold it with the hands. The entire surface of the bowl, with the exception of the rim, is covered in jet-black glaze, which is produced by withdrawing the bowl from the kiln while it is still red-hot and then cooling it quickly.
Some bowls use a vertical brush to emphasize a sense of power, and “Koharaki”, “Koharame” and “Fuyu no Yoru” are representative examples of this style. In particular, “Koharaki” is said to have been owned by Sen no Rikyu, and if this is true, it is a tea bowl that attracts attention as a work that shows the style of art before the year 1592, when Rikyu died. The mouth and body of the bowl show a similar artificiality to Oribe-kuro, and it can be seen as a transitional period in the evolution of Seto tea bowls. Compared to the “Koharaki”, the “Fuyu no Yoru” is generally less artificial, and in particular the way the foot ring is carved is very simple. If we were to deliberately seek out differences in the period, we might say that it is a little more old-fashioned than the “Koharaki”. In addition, the Setoguro tea bowl with the “Waraya” signature is also a memorable masterpiece.
The clay is the same kind of mugwort clay as Shino, but according to Arakawa Yuzo’s book Shino, Setoguro is not placed in a kiln, but is placed on top of the kiln and fired in a place with not very strong heat, and it is generally fired harder than Shino.
Yellow Seto
There are very few yellow Seto tea bowls. In fact, the only one that is known to have been made as a tea bowl is the “Asahina” bowl, which was inscribed by Sotan and is said to have been passed down through the Mitsui Hachiroemon family.
The others were probably made for use as tea bowls, but were later repurposed. The low, wide foot ring, for example, is not really a foot ring, and so the three bowls in this volume, such as the Namba, are excellent works, but they were probably originally made for use as tea bowls.
There are also tea bowls with a transparent yellow glaze, similar to the Ko-Seto ware commonly referred to as Haku-an-te, and some of these date from the Muromachi period, and are thought to be the forerunners of the so-called Ayame-te Kise-to ware. Moreover, the fact that their form is similar to Shuko-seiji ware at first glance is also interesting, and it is thought that they may have been made as copies of celadon ware, along with Tenmoku ware. Therefore, it is possible that there were Seto tea bowls made in the olden days that were similar to those of the Tono school.
By the way, as I have already mentioned, the Asahina bowl is an unusual piece of yellow Seto ware, but the form and style, which make use of the hake-me technique, are very similar to those of Shino tea bowls such as Hatsune, so it is thought to have been made in Mino in the early Momoyama period. However, as there are no other similar examples, it is thought that it was probably a piece that was specially ordered.
The cylindrical tea bowls, which were made with a raised rim, are all Ayame-te Kiseido, but they have common features, such as the addition of a body line and the carving of floral arabesque patterns on two sides, as well as the application of a gall-glaze.
It is said that the pieces made in Okaya are the best, but the gentle, warm color of the yellow glaze with flecks of green glaze on the surface, together with the white glaze of Shino, is very Japanese in flavor. It can be called pottery.
However, depending on the firing conditions, various changes occur in the glaze, and there are very few pieces of the same high quality as the three bowls seen here.
Shino
It is thought that the production of the white-glazed pottery with feldspar-based glaze known as Shino began in the latter half of the Muromachi period (1333-1573) in the kilns of Mino or Seto. Of course, the Shino tea bowls in this volume were all produced after the beginning of the Momoyama period (1568-1600), and the early works were all Tenmoku tea bowls. These white-glazed tenmoku were probably the same as the “Ise white tenmoku” of the time, and there were also “Seto white tenmoku” like the tea bowl owned by Shōō. Then, in the Momoyama period, they developed into the so-called Shino tea bowls, which were painted with iron glaze and then covered with white glaze.
By the way, there are various theories about when the name “Shino tea bowl” first came into use.
The first time the name “Shino” was used to refer to the Momoyama-era Shino ware was in the Edo period, as far as the records show, and it does not appear in the tea ceremony records of the Momoyama period. All of them are simply referred to as “Seto tea bowls” or “white tea bowls”, and there is no mention of a name like “tea bowl Seto Shino”. If this is the case, then either they were not called Shino at the time of firing, or there is no clear reason why they came to be called Shino in later generations. Unfortunately, this is something that is currently unclear.
However, in the Muromachi period, between 1343 and 1586, there is a type of tea bowl called “Shino tea bowl” that is frequently used in the “Tsuda Sōkyū tea and tea ceremony diary” and the “Imai Sōkyū tea and tea ceremony extracts”.
Furthermore, since only the three men, Shōō, Sōkyū and Sōkyū, used these Shino tea bowls, it is thought that there were only two or three of these special tea bowls at the time. However, it is not clear what kind of tea bowl it was, and it is not clear in tea books or tea ceremony records either. However, in the “Tea Ceremony Transmission Volume” that Sen no Rikyū wrote to Sōtokuji, which is in the collection of the Morikawa family in Nagoya, (It is thought that this may be a copy.) In the section on tenmoku, it is written that “the name for the Japanese style is Shino tenmoku”, so it is thought that the Shino tea bowl may have been a Shino tenmoku, or that the Shino tenmoku may have been a tenmoku with white glaze, and that the name Shino may have originated from this.
However, the relationship between this Shino Tenmoku, the Seto Hakutemoku in the possession of Shōō, and the Ise Hakutemoku is unknown, and research into these will have to wait for the future.
The following types of Shino tea bowls were produced from the beginning of the Momoyama period, but it is not clear when they first appeared. If we assume that Shino tea bowls were the black tea bowls that Rikyu replaced with the tea bowls on the stand, then they were already being produced in 1590, and it is thought that they probably began to be produced from around the middle of the Tensho period. And today, the general consensus is that the earliest tea bowls were similar in shape to Setoguro tea bowls, and gradually changed to the so-called Oribe style, which was more elaborate.
Muji Shino
These are simple tea bowls with no painted or carved designs, covered in white glaze all over, and fragments of them have been excavated from kiln sites in Mino, but there are both old and new examples from different kilns, so it is not true to say that all Muji Shino tea bowls are old. In the case of plain Shino, the tea bowl in the possession of Furuta Oribe, which was handed down in the Yabuuchi family in Kyoto, is an old-fashioned style and has a similar appearance to Setoguro tea bowls. The “Umehana” tea bowl in this volume is also an excellent example of this style.
Shino
The most common type of Shino ware, with designs painted in iron glaze (oni-ita) and then covered with white glaze. This type of Shino tea bowl, including the “Uka-bai” type, forms the core of the Shino tea bowls featured in this volume. The works of Okaya are the most outstanding.
Mouse Shino
The surface of the unglazed clay is decorated with a pattern of white incised lines, which are then covered with white glaze. The incised lines are created by scraping away the surface of the clay after it has been decorated with the oni-ita, and then covering the surface with white glaze.
Red Shino
The technique is the same as that used for Nezumi Shino, but the result is red instead of gray, and it is a different type from Beni Shino. Beni Shino is made by applying a coating of clay called “Aka Raku” instead of using a demon plate.
Neriage Shino
It is also called “neriage-te-shino”, but it is better to call it “nerikomi” from the technique used. It is made by kneading red clay into white clay, but it can also be made the other way around.
Oribe
As the name suggests, these bowls were made to the taste of Furuta Oribe Shigenori, and are therefore called Oribe-kuro (black Oribe), Kuro-Oribe (black Oribe), Ao-Oribe (blue Oribe), and Aka-Oribe (red Oribe). If we were to call all Oribe-style bowls Oribe, then Shino would also have to be counted as one of the Oribe styles. In fact, there are plates and bowls in the Shino style that have been handed down with inscriptions on the box that read “Oribe” or “Oribe”. However, today, all white glazed items are generally included in the Shino category, and those with black or blue glazes are called Oribe.
It is not clear when the Seto tea bowls that Oribe liked began to be fired in Mino kilns. According to the “Tsuda Sōyū Chayu Nikki” (Tsuda Sōyū’s Diary of Tea and Tea Ceremony), on January 13th of the 13th year of the Tenshō era, Furuta Suke, or Oribe, held a tea ceremony using Seto tea bowls, and this is the first time that Oribe’s own tea ceremony is mentioned in a tea ceremony diary from the Momoyama period. We don’t know what kind of Seto tea bowl was used for this first tea gathering, but at the time Oribe was 42 years old, and in July Hideyoshi was appointed as the regent, and Furuta Suke was appointed as Oribe no Kami, a junior fifth rank. From then on, when people talked about Oribe, they were referring to him, and he was known as “Oribe-dono” and “Koori-kou”. Therefore, it can be said that the year 1585 was a memorable year for Oribe. He was a military commander, but he was also holding tea ceremonies with great tea masters like Soun Tuda, and he may have already been attracting attention in the world of tea. And considering that the year 1585 was the earliest year in the Momoyama period in which Seto tea bowls (not tenmoku) were used, it can be speculated that there was already contact between Oribe and the Mino potters at this time, or that the tea bowls used at the meeting may have shown Oribe’s preferences. However, if we assume that the first appearance of the Rikyu-style Chojiro tea bowl at a tea ceremony was in 1586, it is possible that the Oribe style had not yet been born, and this is another issue that should be resolved through research into contemporary news and documents.
When Sen no Rikyu died in 1592, the world of tea moved into the Oribe era, and when we enter the Bunroku era, we see that almost all of Oribe’s tea ceremonies used Seto tea bowls, indicating that his relationship with Mino Seto had deepened. And when we reach the Keicho era, the Oribe style is clearly evident. In other words, on February 28th, 1609 (which is interesting because it was the death anniversary of Sen no Rikyu), the tea bowl that was called “the Seto tea bowl is a gift from the lord of Hitomi” was used by him. This is a tea bowl that is undoubtedly a Shino or Oribe-kuro/kuro-oribe kutsu-gata, and it is said to be the representative style of the so-called Oribe-kou. Furthermore, in 1601, he used a white tea bowl called Seto, which is a type of Shino, and in the same year, he used a black tea bowl called Kuro Seto.
The tea bowls that Oribe Furuta, the leader of the tea ceremony, favored were used at tea ceremonies as widely as the Raku tea bowls favored by Rikyu had been used in the past, and by the first year of Genna, the year of Oribe’s death, they were so popular that it was recorded in the “Kajinoki” that “the tea bowls that have been produced in Seto year after year are now the most popular”. Of course, it was the black Oribe tea bowls that formed the mainstay of this.
We have examined the Seto tea bowls of the Oribe period mainly through tea ceremony records from the Momoyama period, and according to these, the age of the Seto tea bowls is not that much older, and it is thought that they rose rapidly around the same time as the Chojiro ware, that is, from around 1586-1587. Therefore, it is thought that most of the Setoguro and Shino ware was produced from the latter half of the Tensho period onwards, even though it is said that Setoguro and Shino ware was produced in the early Momoyama period.
Oribe-kuro
It is not known when this classification began, but Oribe-kuro is the name given to plain black tea bowls with a black glaze, which were Oribe’s favorite, and are not called “Oribe-kuro”. The style of these pieces is generally heavy and stately, and they can be said to be a type of Setoguro with even more elaborate workmanship. They were probably made from the end of the Tensho period to the beginning of the Bunroku and Keicho periods.
Kuro-Oribe
This is not entirely black, but rather a design created by painting with iron glaze in between the black glaze, then applying a thin coat of white glaze to the painted areas and scraping off the black glaze, and then applying a second coat of white glaze. The workmanship is more distorted than Oribe-hizukuro, and there are many pieces with a rich variety of patterns. Most of them are thought to have been made during the Keicho period, but there are some that are thought to be from the earlier period and others that are thought to be from the later period, and the works that are close to Oribe black are early, and in general, there are many thick-walled pieces such as those with a mouth. The later works gradually lose their stateliness and become decorative and light-hearted.
Aka-Oribe
Also known as Narumi Oribe, Hachimaru Oribe is made by joining red clay and white clay together, and then painting a blue glaze on the white clay and drawing patterns on the red clay with white clay, and then adding iron-based line drawings on top of that. Most of these are bowls or plates, and I have never seen a tea bowl. The red Oribe ware is made using only red clay, and this volume includes two bowls, “Yamaji” and “Mushimon”. The firing date is from the period when Oribe ware entered mass production.
Shino Oribe
At first glance, these white pieces with a feldspar glaze look like Shino ware, but they have no trace of the color of the fire, and are often used for large plates, bowls, and serving dishes. Although they are also used for tea bowls, they lack the flavor of Shino ware, and should be considered to be Shino ware that was mass-produced in climbing kilns.
E-Oribe
It is also known as “Oribe-zome” and “Shiro-Oribe”. The body is white but hard, and the white glaze is made by adding ash to feldspar, so it does not have a soft taste. It was fired in the climbing kiln at the Motoyashiki pottery.
In addition to the above, there are also Iga Oribe and Karatsu Oribe, but the representative Oribe of the Momoyama period is still Oribe Kuro, Kuro Oribe, Ao Oribe, Narumi Oribe, etc., and in particular, there are many excellent Oribe Kuro and Kuro Oribe tea bowls. However, in terms of Oribe ware that was to the taste of Furuta Oribe, Shino must of course be added. Together with Chojiro’s tea bowls and Koryo tea bowls, these were the stars of the tea ceremonies of the Momoyama period. In 1588, Rikyu’s top disciple, Sōji Yamagami, commented on the general trend of tea bowls at the time, saying, “The tea bowls of the day are Chinese tea bowls, Seto tea bowls, and even tea bowls made in the Ima-yaki style. If the shape is good, they can be used as tea ceremony utensils.” . As mentioned above, this was the time when the famous Seto tea bowls and Chojiro tea bowls were being used one after another at tea ceremonies, and it can be said that the words of Sōji Yamagami were a straightforward expression of this situation. What is also striking is that Soji says, “If the shape is good, it is a tea utensil”, and it can be said that the spirit of freely enjoying the tea ceremony without being bound by form was the breeding ground for the famous tea bowls of the Momoyama period.
Hakuan
There are around twenty tea bowls known as Hakuan that have been handed down. The origin of the name is said to be that the tea bowls owned by Soya Hakuan, a doctor in the shogunate who died in 1630 at the age of 62, were used as the original for the tea bowls of the same name, and that this name was given by Kobori Enshu. It was also thought that they were made in Seto, Owari. Since then, this has become the accepted theory, and Hakuan is said to be a type of Kise-to (yellow Seto ware) that was made in Seto, and many of the inscriptions on the boxes of tea bowls say “Seto Hakuan”, and in fact, on the “Honka Hakuan” there is a label saying “Seto Hakuan tea bowl”, and on the Hakuan that came down in the Kuroda family, there is an inscription by Kobori Enshu saying “Seto tea bowl”. From the above, it is certain that in the time of Kobori Enshu, the Hakuan was considered to be two types of Seto tea bowl.
As for the date of production, Kusama Waraku’s “Tea Bowl Name Collection” says, “The Hakuan tea bowl is a yellow Seto ware from the Rikyu period, and there are no older examples. The shape is almost all the same, but there are slight differences in size, and it does not match the style of the present day. It is said that this tea bowl was discovered by a man called Soya Hakuan in the city of Edo, and when he showed it to the lord of Enshu, who was alive at the time, he asked for a signature, and the tea bowl was named after Hakuan. It is said that it was a tea bowl that was interesting to use in combination with other tea bowls, so it was sought after by tea ceremony enthusiasts, and that many of them were made in Sakai.
However, the colophon of the “Bessho Kichibei [Koso Den] of the time of the author” dated July 15th of the fourth year of Bunroku (1596) states, “Sohaku, a person from Kawagoe in Musashi, recently went to Kyoto and made many tea bowls from tea caddies. In Musashi, he is called Haku-an , and it is known that the So-haku who called himself Haku-an made tea bowls, but this “Bessho Kichibei” Kosoden-sho is also a valuable source of information, and from its description, we can make the following hypothesis.
That is to say Of course, it goes without saying that the author, Sohaku, and the doctor, Hakuan, were not the same person, but perhaps the tea bowl that Hakuan owned was made by Sohaku, or Hakuan, and when Koshiro Enshu saw it, he knew that it was made by Sohaku wrote “Seto Hakuan” on the tea bowl, and since the name “Hakuan” was the same as that of the doctor Hakuan, it became known in the world as Hakuan’s “Hakuan” tea bowl, and it was probably passed down as if it were a genuine work. If we accept this hypothesis, then the production date would be around the Momoyama period, as stated in the “Tea Bowl Name List”, and if we also consider the fact that at the time, potters who were known for their skills moved to Kyoto and from there went to kilns in various places to make pottery, then it is thought that Sohaku was one of these potters.
I have ventured to state the hypothesis I have ventured to put forward this theory because I have long held the view that the Haku-an tea bowls were specially fired by a single potter from the Momoyama period to the early Edo period, and it may be that I am a little biased in my own favor.
The traditional theory regarding the place of origin of the Haku-an The traditional theory regarding the origin of Haku-an tea bowls was that they were made in Seto, but later, due to the style of the bowls, it was thought that they were made in a kiln other than Seto, and in particular, that they were made on a potter’s wheel, and that the style of the bowls was different from that of Seto-style bowls, and that they were made in Korea. In recent years, the theory that they were made in Seto has receded considerably. is because, since ancient times, the ten characteristics of Haku-an ware have been considered the highlights of its production, namely, “one: loquat-colored, one: sea cucumber medicine, one: stain, one: thin, one: high-fired, one: high-fired, one: latticed, one: wheel-made, one: unglazed, one: tea-stained, one: small knob, one: flat-shaped”. , one kizudoro, one chadome, one konakimochi, one han-warigata, and others such as “bamboo-jointed footring and footring with flying glaze” are said to be the agreement, but many of these are characteristics of Korean-style tea tea bowls are more characteristic of Korean-style bowls than of Seto-style bowls, and that there are examples of the same glaze as the Haku-an tea bowls in the Korean Aein-yaki ware, the Seto theory has to be abandoned when we look at the actual production process.
However , the most distinctive feature of the Haku-an tea bowls is that the production of many of them was a highly technical process that was carried out deliberately, and the fact that the crack in the body and the nakago glaze that appears on it were created and glazed deliberately is significant when considering the production period and place. However, There are also tea bowls that have no nakago glaze at all, such as the tea bowl donated to the Tokugawa Art Museum by the Okaya family of Nagoya, and others that have nakago glaze on the inside but not on the outside, and there are also tea bowls that have been promised However, there are also slight differences in the way they were made, such as the “Honka Hakuan” and “Okuda”, “Fuyuki”, and “Kuroda” styles, and although they were all made intentionally, it is not possible to say that they were all made in the same period.
From this , if we make a wild guess, we can think that there was something that became the prototype for Hakuun (or it could have been a Korean tea bowl), and that the so-called “promised” tea bowls were made using that as a model.
As a conclusion , I think that the place of origin is either Seto or Kyō-Seto. In that case, the question of the Korean style of production becomes important, but considering that this was a special order piece, I think that it may not be that significant. The theory that it is or Karatsu-style theory, what I find most problematic is the fact that Enshu Kobori referred to them as “Seto Hakuan” or “Seto tea bowls” at a time not too far removed from the time of their production, and that the clay used seems to me to be more like Seto clay than Karatsu clay. Therefore , so the original form may have been a Korean tea bowl (or if you examine all the Hakuan tea bowls that have been handed down in detail, you may find the original form in them), but the Hakuan tea bowls that have been made to the agreed-upon specifications are made in Kyoto using Seto
