Studio- Talk
SET OF THREE KAKEMONO WITH DARUMA IN CENTRE BY SESSHYU
{Viscount Inabds sale, 1290 yen) ■
mous price of 167,000 yen (nearly £17,000), but, Temmoku tea-bowl, is absent; and the outside,
as one ot the connoisseurs remarked, no price could so deliciously smooth to the touch, is in that
be said to be too high for so exquisitely beautiful iridescent dark tone in which green and purple
a piece. Some years ago a German collector melt into a deep black—the glaze so delicately
offered, but in vain, the sum of 100,000 yen for suggesting the colour of the wings of an insect
a similar bowl at the Daitikuji, a time-honoured called tamamushi, which our artists in olden
Buddhist temple in Kyoto very intimately times delighted in using for the decoration of
associated with cha-no-yu. The one in Viscount precious objects. The glaze stops at a short
Inaba's collection is superior to that. As may distance from the bottom, where the lustreless
be seen from the accompanying reproduction, dark pottery, with a texture like that of silk
the inside has curious marks, apparently crape, remains exposed. Seldom have I held
accidental, in the glaze of dark greenish-purple in my hands a bowl that conjured up in me so
hue of profound depth. In these iridescent much as this the ecstasy of cha-no-yu, an
bubble-like marks that seem to come and go in institution or cult in which the drinking of the
the profound purplish silence of the past and tea is merely a means of helping us to realize
future, the evanescence of life is suggested, and truth and beauty amid the sordid facts of our
when the bowl is filled with the soothing green existence, and to see ourselves in right proportion
beverage (the tea to be drunk in such a bowl to the infinite.
is prepared by whipping in hot water pulverized -
green tea-leaves), how exquisite is the harmony A number of splendid cha-ire (caddies) were
of hues ! The metal edge, so common to a also sold on this occasion, as well as porcelain
Q9
SET OF THREE KAKEMONO WITH DARUMA IN CENTRE BY SESSHYU
{Viscount Inabds sale, 1290 yen) ■
mous price of 167,000 yen (nearly £17,000), but, Temmoku tea-bowl, is absent; and the outside,
as one ot the connoisseurs remarked, no price could so deliciously smooth to the touch, is in that
be said to be too high for so exquisitely beautiful iridescent dark tone in which green and purple
a piece. Some years ago a German collector melt into a deep black—the glaze so delicately
offered, but in vain, the sum of 100,000 yen for suggesting the colour of the wings of an insect
a similar bowl at the Daitikuji, a time-honoured called tamamushi, which our artists in olden
Buddhist temple in Kyoto very intimately times delighted in using for the decoration of
associated with cha-no-yu. The one in Viscount precious objects. The glaze stops at a short
Inaba's collection is superior to that. As may distance from the bottom, where the lustreless
be seen from the accompanying reproduction, dark pottery, with a texture like that of silk
the inside has curious marks, apparently crape, remains exposed. Seldom have I held
accidental, in the glaze of dark greenish-purple in my hands a bowl that conjured up in me so
hue of profound depth. In these iridescent much as this the ecstasy of cha-no-yu, an
bubble-like marks that seem to come and go in institution or cult in which the drinking of the
the profound purplish silence of the past and tea is merely a means of helping us to realize
future, the evanescence of life is suggested, and truth and beauty amid the sordid facts of our
when the bowl is filled with the soothing green existence, and to see ourselves in right proportion
beverage (the tea to be drunk in such a bowl to the infinite.
is prepared by whipping in hot water pulverized -
green tea-leaves), how exquisite is the harmony A number of splendid cha-ire (caddies) were
of hues ! The metal edge, so common to a also sold on this occasion, as well as porcelain
Q9