Korea, China and Japan at One Tea Table: A Museum Tea Setting
Updated: 27 minutes ago
In 2009, Tokyo National Museum held a special exhibition of blue-and-white ceramics, 「染付－藍が彩るアジアの器」 (Sometsuke), which ran from 14 July to 6 September. For it, the museum arranged pieces from its collection as a modern tea setting of East Asian tea ware that brings together Korean, Chinese and Japanese ceramics. The museum also set a sake service and a breakfast table for the same exhibition.
The museum's own note describes the idea: "serving tea: two soft-toned sometsuke bowls as spare tea bowls, and a ko-sometsuke tea caddy". Below, we look at the four pieces in the setting one by one.
Korean Hakeme Tripod Tea Bowl, "Izutsu"
The museum's English title for this bowl is Tripod Tea Bowl with Brush Marks, Named "Izutsu". It was made in Korea during the Joseon dynasty, in the 16th to 17th centuries. No kiln or maker is recorded.
The bowl is stoneware. Its grey body was brushed with white slip and then covered with a transparent glaze. The mouth is warped, so from the side the rim looks wavy.
According to the museum record, the unusual shape suggests the bowl was made as a folk ritual vessel. It was only later, in Japan, that it came to be prized as a bowl for drinking matcha.
That later use connects it to Japanese tea taste. In tea and haikai, wabi (侘び) is an aesthetic ideal: the clear, quiet tranquillity found in simplicity, which took shape from the medieval period onwards and was especially valued in the tea ceremony. The museum record does not use the word for this bowl, so we offer it here only as background to the tea culture that later adopted it.
The bowl stands 7.6 cm high, with a mouth diameter of 13.2 cm, and weighs 287 g. It was donated by Hirota Matsushige (広田松繁, Fukosai, 1897 to 1973).
Chinese Ko-sometsuke Tea Caddy with Figures
This is the ko-sometsuke tea caddy from the museum's note. Its English title is Tea Caddy, Figures design in underglaze blue.
The caddy is Chinese. It was made at Jingdezhen in the 17th century, during the Ming dynasty, in porcelain painted with figures in underglaze blue.
It stands 8.5 cm high, with a mouth of 6.5 cm and a base of 5.2 cm. Like the tripod bowl, it was donated by Hirota Matsushige.
Eiraku Hozen's Blue-and-White Tea Bowl with Arhats
The museum gives no English title for this bowl, which we render as Tea Bowl with Arhats in Underglaze Blue. It is Japanese, made by Eiraku Hozen in the 19th century, during the Edo period, and inscribed 永樂 (Eiraku). The record does not name a kiln.
The bowl is porcelain decorated in underglaze blue. It stands 7.8 cm high, with a mouth of 9.1 cm and a foot of 5.8 cm.
Mashimizu Zōroku II's Shonzui-Style Tea Bowl
This bowl's title, which we render as Tea Bowl with Shonzui-style Design in Underglaze Blue, names its source of inspiration. Shonzui (祥瑞) is a group of blue-and-white wares made at private kilns in Jingdezhen at the end of the Ming dynasty, to order for Japanese tea masters. To see an actual Ming Shonzui piece, look at a Chinese Shonzui sake bottle.
The bowl itself is Japanese porcelain in underglaze blue, made in the 19th century, during the Meiji era. It is by Mashimizu Zōroku II (二代真清水蔵六) and inscribed 真清水蔵六造 (Mashimizu Zōroku zō, made by Mashimizu Zōroku). He lived from 1861 to 1936 and took the name Zōroku in 1882.
It stands 6.2 cm high, with a mouth of 10.4 cm and a foot of 5.5 cm.
East Asian Tea Ware at One Table: Korea, China and Japan
The setting spans three countries and roughly the 16th to the 19th century. A Korean bowl, probably first made for ritual, later became a matcha bowl in Japan. A Ming caddy from Jingdezhen sits beside two 19th-century Japanese bowls, one of which looks back to the Shonzui wares made in China for Japanese tea masters.
The museum brought these pieces together for its 2009 exhibition, where they share one tea table.
These pieces belong to the Tokyo National Museum and aren't for sale, but if they've got you thinking about your own tea table, you can browse the pieces we have, inspired by traditions like these, in our Etsy shop.
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