Raku 1st Chojiro (?-1589) Square kuro-raku bowl #3821 for sale

Up for sale is this "Raku 1st Chojiro (?-1589) Square kuro-raku bowl #3821" If you have any questions please contact us before buy it. No reserve.

- width: approx. 10cm (3 15/16in)

- height: approx. 7.9cm (3 7/64in)

- weight: 322g (gross 730g)

- writing on the box: Chojiro black tea bowl, writing by Kakkaku-sai (Omotesenke the 6th 1678-1730), name is "Mukiguri"

- note: The wooden box was shrunken by time.Please careful about treating the bowl when you pull it out from the box because the box size is just fit for the bowl.  

Raku Chojiro
A son of Ayame and Hikuni, he was the founder of Raku style of pottery (Raku ware), which was hand molded without the use of a pottery wheel. He made the Raku pottery studio with Tanaka Soke, as well as Joke and Somi who were Soke’s sons. It is said that Chojiro’s wife was Somi’s daughter.
Chojiro made a new style of pottery, which was inspired by the ideas of Rikyu, famous amongst the general public. This work is also known as “raku chawan“ (hand molded tea bowl) with its origins stemming from Raku pottery.
Raku ware has its roots in a firing technique of Chinese (Ming dynasty) tri-colored glazed pottery, which has green, yellow, sky blue and brown colored glaze.
However, Chojiro stopped using such colors in his works. His chawan just has black or red glaze, emphasizing the color of Juraku red clay. You can see Rikyu’s style reflected in Chojiro’s monotone color works.
The tea bowls were the avant-garde of the time. Chojiro came up with new standards of value, unintended beauty, by reducing the number of ornaments and luxuriousness to the utmost limit in the works.
Nobody knows when Chojiro started making chawan, however, an old document titled ‘Tennojiya-kaki (1580) (a record of a tea ceremony meeting)’ mentions ‘hatanosoritatsu-chawan’, meaning the outwardly flared (everted) lip or rim of a tea bowl, which is considered to be an aka-raku (red-glazed) chawan named ‘Doseiji’ made by Chojiro.
Furthermore, there is a mention of ‘Soeki (Sen no Rikyu)-gata (shape) no (of) chawan (tea bowl) (shape of Soeki like)’ in a scene of a tea ceremony party hosted by the tea ceremony master Nakabo Gengo in an old document ‘Matsuya-kaiki’ from 1586, which is considered to be chawan made by Chojiro. However, the record appeared one time only. Subsequently, Chojiro’s chawan started being referred to as ‘Imayaki chawan (modern tea bowl)’, ‘Juraku-yaki chawan (tea bowl made of Juraku clay)’ in the document. It is considered that Chojiro’s works became famous amongst the general public around the year.
Although many of Chojiro’s works were chawan, he also made flat bowls, incense burners, shishi statues and etc, however, they were very rare.
Chojiro’s chawan can be classified roughly into a few shaping types. For example, the Rikyu-type chawan is very simple and efficiently made, typified by kuro raku chawan `oguro`,
aka raku chawan ‘muichimotsu’ and ‘tarobo’. On the other hand, there was an asymmetrical type, breaking the balance between the right and left side of the bowl intentionally like kuro raku chawan ‘shunkan’ and `omokage`.
In addition, there were kuro raku chawan, for example `mukiguri`, which has a square shape between the rim and the hip (near the bottom) and Aka raku chawan, like ‘dojoji’, which is made in a similar style to Koetsu’s art.
Chojiro’s family was working at his raku pottery studio, however, Chojiro did not put his signature on his works. It is difficult to distinguish Chojiro’s own works from his family’s. Therefore Sokei’s and Jokei’s works were considered Chojiro’s works as well. This is why there exist different types of chawan.

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