Height 10.1cm, mouth diameter 6.0cm, bottom diameter 6.9cm
Yugi Art Museum
One of the main styles of Kenzan ware is the mukozuke (tea bowls), tea bowls, and plates, which are richly and elegantly underglaze painted with seasonal scenes using a combination of white-lacquered iron pigments and gozu (a type of mineral pigment).
This tsutsu mukozuke is one of the finest examples in existence, and is in excellent condition both in terms of firing and preservation. Each of the ten pieces is beautifully arranged, and each is decorated with a design of cranes, grass, bracken, spring orchids, pine, plum blossoms, willows, sailboats, bamboo grass, chrysanthemums, etc., both inside and out, in tsuke and iron pigments on a white-brush base.
The hazy look of the white brushes is also quite effective, as one would naturally expect.
The characters are not uniform and are uneven, but the mood conveyed by the characters is the same in each case, suggesting that the brush strokes were made by Qianzan.
It is also rare that they have survived in their own box.
