Height 6.0cm, mouth diameter 15.9cm, base diameter 5.1cm
Gokusui Art Museum
Seto Karatsu” is the name given by the tea masters to this bowl, which has a glaze similar to that of Shino, and was given to Seto-style Karatsu ware in reference to the fact that Shino was called Seto tea bowls. This tea bowl is a masterpiece of Seto Karatsu, commonly known as a skin whale hand, which is a common name for a tea bowl that resembles a skin whale with black skin, with the mouth painted with iron pigments and the entire surface covered with feldspar glaze. The elegant style of this bowl suggests the taste of the Enshu period in the early Edo period, and it is highly valued among tea masters as a summer tea bowl, but it has already lost the rustic taste unique to Karatsu. The small, tight base is almost straight, flat, and shallowly rises up, and the tea bowl is mirrored deeply and clearly in the tea bowl with three marks around the mirrored area. The crepe crepe wrinkles appear inside the base, and the glaze is partly blown off, and there are other pieces of almost the same style, and since their shapes and dimensions are consistent, it is thought that they were a kind of Gohon tea bowls made by special order.
