This delicate porcelain kyusu (teapot) has a classic shape and is decorated with hand-painted grape leaves in a layered combination of both blue underglaze painting (sometsuke - 染付) and coloured overglaze enamel painting (iro-e - 色絵).
Instead of being painted, the grapes in the motif are punched and filled using Tanshin Kiln's signature suisho-bori (crystal carving) openwork style. Each hand-punched grape is filled with a crystal clear transparent glaze, giving the piece a bright and airy appearance.
The kyusu has a built-in porcelain debeso strainer.
Specifications
Made in Japan. Ships from the United States.
Width: 16.5 cm (6.5 in)(including handle)
Height: 7.9 cm (3.11 in)
Capacity: 250 ml (8.45 oz)
Hasami-yaki Ceramics
Located in the mountain town of Hasami in Nagasaki Prefecture, Hasami-yaki (波佐見焼) is a ceramics tradition that has a similar story to its neighbouring styles, such as Karatsu-yaki, Hagi-yaki, and Arita-yaki. These ceramics traditions all started in the late 1500s when Korean potters were brought to Japan following the unsuccessful Japanese invasions of Korea, and were instructed to produce wares using Korea's more advanced ceramics technology.
Under the direction of samurai Ōmura Yoshiaki, Hasami-yaki originally produced stoneware, but after the discovery of suitable clay and kaolin in the early Edo, they began producing porcelain as well as Japan's first domestic celadon. By the late Edo, they had become the nation's largest producers of porcelain, mostly working in the blue and white 'sometsuke' style.
In the 1900s, Hasami-yaki's name faded as they mostly operated as subcontract workers for Arita-yaki kilns. In the past twenty years, there has been an ongoing effort to revive their name and recognition.
About Shuisho-bori (Crystal Carving)
Suisho-bori (水晶彫 - Crystal Carving) is Tanshin Kiln's unique innovation on the classic hotaru-de (蛍手 - firefly stlye) or linglongyan (玲瓏瓷). Known as 'rice grain porcelain' in English, this is a classic Chinese style of glazed openwork perfected in the Ming Dynasty. In traditional rice grain porcelain, the pierced holes are filled with a semi-translucent clay or glaze, allowing light to shine through.
Wishing to improve on this centuries-old style, Tanshin Kiln's founder, Nagasaki Yuzuru (長崎譲), developed a secret clay blend that becomes completely transparent after firing. Due to the brilliant clarity of this innovation, Nagasaki-san dubbed his new technique Crystal Carving.
About Iro-e
There are many styles of chawan produced in the Kyōto area and few are as synonymous with the term Kyō-yaki (京焼 - Kyōto wares) as the colourful overglaze painted styles. While there is no agreed upon term for the general Kyōto style, the term iro-e ( 色絵 - colourful paintings) refers to the technique of overglaze painting. Unlike the painted styles detailed above which used iron pigments applied underneath a transparent glaze, overglaze decoration uses enamels applied on top of the glaze. This allows for much more colourful and detailed designs and images. The development of this style can be traced to three individual potters. Nonomura Ninsei (野々村仁清) and his student Ogata Kenzan (尾形 乾山) pioneered the style in the early-mid Edo period. Later in the 1700s, Okuda Eisen (奥田頴川) introduced porcelain technology to Kyōto which made overglaze painting easier.
About Sometsuke
Sometsuke (染付) is the general Japanese term for what is known as 'blue-and-white' ware in English, and typically refers to porcelain wares with cobalt-blue decorations applied under the glaze. This style became popular in 13th century Jingdezhen porcelain and later spread throughout Asia. In Japan, this style is particularly popular in Arita-yaki porcelain.
While by far the most popular style in mainland China throughout the Ming Dynasty, these wares were not popular for use as tea bowls in Japan, where the older and rarer celadons and tenmoku were initially preferred.
Meet Tanshin Kiln (丹心窯)About the Artist
Nestled in the mountains of Nagasaki, near the border with Saga, and surrounded by rice fields and nature is Tanshin Kiln. Founded in 1980 when Nagasaki Yuzuru (長崎譲) desired to work as an independent potter, and branched away from his grandfather's workshop. He sought to refine and perfect the ancient porcelain openwork technique known as hotaru-de in Japan and linglong in China. In standard hotaru-de wares, the open areas are filled with a translucent but cloudy glaze, but Nagasaki-san perfect a technique which produced crystal clear openwork. He called his new style suisho-bori: Crystal Carving.
Yuzuru-san's successor, Tadayoshi (長﨑忠義) is the current head of the kiln and continues to produce Tanshin Kiln's singature crystal carved wares.
