160. Yellow Seto-ware (kiseto) chawan, mid-twentieth century

160. Yellow Seto-ware (kiseto) chawan, mid-twentieth century

Gray clay, with yellow and green glazes, base left unglazed. Weight: 236 g (8.5 oz). Rim and maximum diameter: 13 cm (5-1/8 in); foot ring diameter: 5 cm (2 in). Height: 6 cm (2-3/8 in).

This sits on the foot ring, which is 0.5 cm (3/16 in) on the outside. The area inside the foot ring was hollowed out to about two-thirds of this distance. The walls just above the foot ring jut out in a straight horizontal line for a distance of about 0.5 cm. The walls then rise upward in more or less a straight line to a height of 4.2 cm (1-5/8 in) above the base. Above this is a concave groove about a finger’s width wide leading to the rim. A rectangular seal with three characters (see last picture) was stamped into the outer wall of the piece just above the base. The first two characters appear to be 津島 (Tsushima); the last character is illegible. I can’t find any potter or kiln associated with this name, although there is a Tsushima in Aichi-ken, near Seto. A circular emblem containing three “comma”-like shapes chasing one another’s tails (see second and third pictures) was pressed into the outer wall of the piece.  The surface of this is pitted but not particularly rough.

With the exception of the base, this was glazed using the yellow Seto-ware glaze. Both the interior and the exterior have three blobs of an Oribe-style copper-green glaze. Spots and streaks of brown colors show through much of the yellow glaze.

This fits nicely in the hands. The groove just under the rim makes it easy to hold. The splashes of green color break up what otherwise might be a monotonous yellow. This shows evidence of much use.

Purchased from Treasures of Old Times in Bangkok in November 2021.