Tortoiseshell cups are iron black-glazed tea bowls with a tortoiseshell pattern on the outside. Tortoiseshell is commonly called “tortoiseshell”, so it is also called “Bekko” or “Susan”. There are many applied names such as “玻・” “amekin・” “態皮” “能皮” and so on.
The outside of the cups have the same tortoiseshell pattern, but the inside has various patterns such as flowers, long-tailed birds, and leaves. The Jizhou kilns of Song dynasty China were the main production center of this type of cup. Some of the descriptions of this type of pottery are as follows In “Noh Asoudenshu”, there are “basket cup, cup for water, cup for oolong, cup for oolong, and cup for skin with black ground”, and in “Kuntai kanzaijochoki” (in the collection of Tohoku University, Eiroku Koshuhon), “Noh (note, the original has “tai” as a furigana, perhaps a misprint of “katan”. In the same book in the “Gunsho Ruishu”, there is “cup for basket, white clay, candy-colored medicine, and a shape of a bird’s flower in the medicine, about 1,000 pieces. It is also called “Bekko-chan” in “Wakan-cha-shi” (Japanese and Chinese Tea Magazine). In “Chayu Shodenshu”, there is “Bikisan” which is probably made of white clay and the medicine is pear-colored, and there is a five-leaf plum bowl or a flower and a bird. The sake cups are very rare. Susan is a kind of sake cup, and its medicine is pear color, which is used for tea cups. In short, it is a cup made of white clay covered with a tenmoku glaze, but when it is double glazed, a Kirigami pattern is applied on a part of the glaze to make it single glazed, so that the different colored patterns will stand out.
Tortoiseshell cup
National treasure. A great masterpiece. Chinese teacup, Tortoiseshell cup, cup for sake cup. Tortoiseshell cup, owned by Saburoemon Ueda, a merchant in Osaka, passed down to Fumai Matsudaira in 1778 and has been in the Unshu family since then. It is covered with a brass ring and has a yellow tortoiseshell mottled pattern on a black ground on the outside, which is not in accordance with its name. The inside is pear-skin colored, with a 7.5 mm wide pattern around the mouth rim or 9 mm below the rim, and a three-step Karahana pattern from there to the tea-tureen, The glazed color pattern is beautiful both inside and out, and is considered to be the best of all Tenmoku wares. （The glaze and color patterns are beautiful both inside and out, and it is considered one of the finest examples of Tenmoku.)
Tortoiseshell cup
Important cultural property, Chungking specialty. Chinese tea bowl, Tortoiseshell cup, Tortoiseshell cup with tenmoku.
The shape of this cup is slightly open and the outside is glazed with yellowish skin on black ground. It should be called “Susan” in that sense, but it is also called “Tenmoku” in Chinese characters because of its special design inside. The characters are written in three different flower-shaped water chestnuts on the inside of the cup. The characters are different one by one, and they are a four-character phrase: “wealth and beauty, long life,” “gold and jewels,” and “happiness, long life and peace. It was a fixture of the Ryuko-in Temple of Daitokuji, and entered the Konoike family through Tennojiya Gohei.
