Cha ceramics

Tea bowl Shino type Mino ware.

Known as "Furisode"

Momoyama period 1600

Five serving dishes with persimmon design.

Momoyama period 1600-1620

Mino ware {green Oribe type} Motoyashiki kiln.

Seto ware mizusashi (water jar)

Probably from ōfuke, Japan Edo period, 17th century AD

This fresh water container has spiralling fronds painted under the white glaze much in the Ezetō ('Illustrated Seto') style. Such wares were made in the Mino kilns working in the Seto tradition, and also at nearby ōfuke (near modern Nagoya) where this piece was probably made.

Among the major kiln groups established by the Kamakura period (1185-1333), only those at Seto developed the deliberately applied glaze instead of the old natural ash glaze. Early pieces imitated wares from the Chinese Song dynasty (AD 960-1279). The rich Seto glaze was perfected during the fifteenth century, and later adopted by potters of Mino Province (modern Gifu Prefecture).

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The development of Japanese ceramics flourished from the late Muromachi through to the beginning of the Edo period {16th-17th century}. Much of the new activity had to do with the rise of the tea ceremony {chanoyu}, which had been introduced from China in 1191 by the Zen priest Eisai {1141-1215}. In the course of time, the wealthy citizens of Kyoto and other large towns,as well as the samurai, had come to accept the tea ceremony and its basic tenents as their way of life. As the tea ceremony came to occupy a place of intense importance, a demand arose for appropriate ceramics to be used in the rituals.

Karatsu was a simple peasant ware which was adapted to the tea ceremony originally. Shino and Oribe ware, were, from the beginning intended for use in chanoyo and the accompanying kaiseki-ryori {before the tea ceremony food service}. It has traditionally been suggested that the noted tea master Furuta Oribe {1544-1615} played a major role in the designs of Shino. This cannot be proven,and it may be that he only placed orders at the Shino kilns, which were operating under the protection of the powerful Toki clan, of which he was a descendant.

The Toki family was in control of eastern Mino.To this area, some fifteen miles north of Seto, many Seto potters had migrated toward the end of the Muromachi period, when it had become increasingly difficult for them to continue their work in Owari province owing to the unsettled conditions caused by the civil wars that were raging then. As a result, of the movement of potters away from Seto, new kilns were set up in eastern Mino, leading to the production of new wares - Ki {yellow}, Seto, Shino, Seto-guro {Black Seto}, and Oribe - which flourished in the Momoyama period.