Studio: international art (72.1918)

Studio-Talk

POTTERY WATER-JAR (7OO YEN) AND PORCELAIN WATER-JAR
DECORATED (3680 YEN)

(Sold at Mr. Akaboshts sale in Tokyo']

some other Buddhistic paintings, was a work
entitled Mida Raigo attributed to Takuma-
Choga, who lived about 700 years ago and was
famous as a painter of Buddhistic images. The
title means “ Amida's descent to welcome the
souls of men ” (Mida being an abbreviation of
Amida, ideal of boundless light, Rai meaning
to come, and go to welcome), and the subject
is a favourite one with our Buddhistic artists.
In the centre is Amida, attended by Seishi (a
merciful Buddhistic deity who awakens in us
the precious desire to become Buddha) and
Kwannon (another Buddhistic deity of great
compassion who looks after the growth of the
precious desire created in the human soul by
Seishi), one of them in stooping posture holding
a renza (a seat of lotus blossom) for a human
soul to step on, and to be guided to the land
of eternal bliss. Thin lines of gold are pro-
fusely used. The stooping figure with a renza,
in particular, is exceedingly graceful and
persuasive beyond words. Another excellent
Buddhistic drawing offered was a Kwannon
(goddess of mercy) gazing at a waterfall, being
one of the thirty-three different manifestations
of this deity. This drawing, which was sold for
4387 yen, was by Isshi, a Japanese priest,
artist of some four hundred and eighty years
ago, and it Was one of his masterpieces.

The sale showed how deeply our people
have gone into cha-no-yu, which literally means
“ hot water of tea," but in reality is a cult or an
institution founded upon the adoration of the
beautiful amidst the common facts of everyday
168

life in which the drinking
of tea is but a mere ex-
cuse. The sum of 100,000
yen (£10,000) was paid for
a cha-ire (a small pottery
caddy of a few inches in
height to keep pulverized
tea in) named Saruwaka,
while another caddy named
Rikyu Jizo fetched 77,000
yen. These two caddies
are among the meibutsu,
meaning that they have
long been counted among
celebrated pieces. Besides
these there were seven
more meibutsu cha - ire,
which fetched from 13,800
yen to 44,300 yen apiece. Five meibutsu chawan
(pottery tea-bowls), brought from 21,100 to

82,000 yen apiece. One bowl with a black
glaze and frosty effect here and there fetched
the enormous sum of 67,000 yen (nearly £7000).
One of the most interesting chawan in the
sale was a pottery tea-bowl made up of three
broken pieces of different makes. Apparently
when the bowl was first broken, the missing
part was supplied with a piece from another
bowl, and when again broken it was carefully
mended with a piece from still another bowl.
It realized 31,100 yen.

These are not the only articles for which
extraordinary prices were paid at the sale. A
porcelain water-jar fetched 35,338 yen, a Dutch
cake-bowl 23,000 yen, a small porcelain incense-
holder 66,000 yen, a porcelain incense-burner

39.000 yen, a chashaku (a piece of bamboo bent
at the end to scoop out powdered tea from the
caddy) 2400 yen, while the enormous sum of

86.000 yen was paid for a piece of bamboo cut
to serve as a flower vase, and 83,336 yen for a
Chinese porcelain flower vase. Some costly lac-
quer cabinets and boxes also commanded very
high prices. Because of the exorbitant prices
they fetched, and of the unusually large number
of famous works of art, quite a sensation was
created by Mr. Akaboshi’s first sale, of which
the above is a brief review. The second and
third sales, though not without some splendid
examples of Japanese and Chinese art, came
nowhere near the first in point of importance.

Harada-Jiro.