A great specialty. Gourd tea container made by Han. One name is Otomo Hyotan. Uesugi Keikatsu (1543-1598) was a great admirer of these gourds, so they are called. It is also named after Otomo Sorin, who possessed it. It is the smallest of the famous tea caddies and is said to be the best of the six gourds under heaven. It is the smallest of the famous tea caddies. It is thin, elaborately made, and somewhat similar in shape to a mouth gourd. The shape is somewhat similar to a mouth gourd. There is an oozing pattern of common-color glaze in the persimmon-kinki-glaze, over which there are quail spots of blackish ame-iro glaze, and in the oki shape, the dark ame-iro glaze runs from the mouth rim to the shoulder, forming a landscape. The beautiful scenery created by the beautiful changes in the ame-iro persimmon glaze and the fire interval is comparable to that of Matsudaira Fumai’s Aburaya kagashu. Originally owned by Ashikaga Yoshimasa, it was passed down through Shuko and Shaogu to Ouchi Yoshitaka, and then to his son-in-law Yoshinaga. When Mori Motonaga attacked the Ouchi clan in 1557 (Kouji 3), he sent an envoy to Sorin to ask if he should help his brother Yoshinaga, to which Sorin replied that he could kill his brother but only wanted the gourd tea caddy in his possession. Motonari killed Yoshinaga and sent the tea caddy to Sorin. Sorin’s son Yoshitada presented it to Toyotomi Hideyoshi during his conquest of Kyushu, and it was later given to Uesugi Keikatsu. It remained in the Uesugi family for 50 years until Sadakatsu’s death, when Tsunakatsu took over the family and presented it to the shogunate. After that, it was temporarily transferred to the Maeda family in Kaga, but was returned to the Shogunate, and then to the Kishu family after Yorinobu Kii Dainagon received it when he retired from the shogunate. (It was sold to the Kishu family in 1927 for 35,960 yen.)
