Tea Bowl

Tea Bowl  - Tortoise-shell Tenmoku ware Southern Song dynasty, China.

This is a tenmoku type tea bowl produced at the Jizhou kiln in Jiangxi Province, China.  The name comes from the fact that yellowish brown spots, resembling a tortoise shell, appear on yellowish brown spots, resembling a tortoise shell, appear on the dark brown iron glaze.  Characteristics of this type of tea bowl are that while the outside is covered with brown spots, the inside has a flower, phoenix, leaf or Chinese character design.  This tea bowl has the tortoise-shell sports on the outside and stenciled floral lozenges on the inside.

Nine Flowers of the Four Seasons

Nine Flowers of the Four Seasons by Tsubaki Chinzan Edo period, Japan.  Tsubaki Chinzan (1801-1854) first studied painting with Kaneko Kinryo.  He also mastered the so-called “boneless” technique (lacking contour lines) of the Chinese artist Yun Nantian.  Chinzan was particularly skilled in the “bird and flower” genre and was esteemed as the best painter of flowering plants in his time.

This is the upper portion of the painting depicting red plum blossoms, peony and white magnolias.  Painted in 1852 when Chinzan was 52 years old.