203. Ko-Oribe kōgō 香合 (incense container for Japanese tea ceremony)
Brown clay. Glazed in Oribe green, cream, and brown; base and neighboring portions of wall and the edges where the top and bottom halves meet were left unglazed. Weight: (entire) 94 g (3.4 oz); (lid) 46 g; (bottom) 48 g. Height: (entire) 4.4 cm (1-3/4 in); (lid) 2.8 cm (1-1/8 in); (bottom) 2.3 cm (7/8 in). Width: 5.5 cm (2-3/16 in).
This sits on a round base 2.5 cm (1 in) in diameter. There is no foot ring per se, but the inside of the base has been hollowed out to a shallow depth. Above the base the walls rise at about a 30-degree angle to the full width about 0.6 cm (1/4 in) above the base. From there the walls rise in more or less a straight line to a height of 3.2 cm (1-1/4 in). They then curve inward toward the center to a height of 3.8 cm (1-1/2 in). A topknot of a coiled, ribbed cordlike string of clay sits in the center of the lid. It’s too small to serve as a knob to lift the lid. The sides of the box form a square with rounded corners (or alternatively, a circle has been squared off to make straight sides. Both the lid and the bottom have a horizontal groove running around the circumference, roughly in the middle of each part. The upper surface of the lid has another groove about 0.6 cm (1/4 in) in from the sides to make a slightly raised portion. The walls are about 0.3 (1/8 in) thick. The interior of the box mirrors the exterior. The bottom has a flange on the inner side of the top edge that fits snugly inside the lid. The surface is bumpy.
The topknot was glazed in Oribe green. The exterior and interior walls (with the exceptions noted above) were glazed in cream. On the front of the box is a vaguely plant-like design in brown. The cream glaze on the exterior has darkened due to aging.
The seller dated this to the seventeenth/eighteenth centuries and labeled it as Shino ware. The box this came in has no inscription.
Purchased from Treasures of Old Times in Bangkok, November 2022.
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