Tetsubin are cast iron water kettles which were popular in Japan as everyday household utensils and for informal and semi-formal tea drinking. During the second half of the 19th century, tetsubin made especially as tea utensils came to be highly esteemed. Fine ornamental tetsubin were preferred by the upper classes for the sencha style tea ceremony. A common characteristic of sencha kettles was that one side more heavily decorated than the other. In the sencha tea ceremony a tetsubin, held by the host in his right hand, is looked at by the guest with the spout pointing to the right. This is the side of the tetsubin which is usually more ornately decorated in order to enable the guest to admire the kettle’s “best” side.

Tetsubin can be classified according to their level of quality, separating those of higher technical quality and more decorative external features – the so-called “ornamental” kettles – from those of lower technical quality and less decorated ones. High relief ornamental tetsubin like this one are magnificent examples of Japanese ironwork which are very much sought after by collectors today.

The reverse is signed “Tai Min Seika Nen Sei” (Great Ming Chenghua Year Made) painted in underglaze blue within a blue ring on the glazed foot. This is an apocryphal six-character reign mark of Chenghua, a Chinese emperor in the Ming Dynasty who set very high porcelain standards. To the left of the reign mark is another blue mark with four characters which reads "Nabeshima Seizan.” Seizan was a Nabeshima kiln which produced studio pieces in elegant Nabeshima style during the Meiji period. The foot ring is unglazed, and there is one spur mark.

Nabeshima ware is considered to be the most Japanese of all the porcelains and the most technically perfect. It was made at Okawachi, north of Arita, and was named after the prince who founded the kilns at the end of the 17th century. The porcelain was of much higher quality than that made for export and was originally made as presentation ware for the local nobility. Production was limited, and less than perfect specimens were destroyed. Its elegance was considered to be the epitome of refinement, and production methods were kept a carefully guarded secret. From 1868 on, Nabeshima wares were produced for domestic use and Western export.

Also called Tokyo or Kanto style, the Edo type hibachi is of simple design, with straight sides and small drawers arranged down one side of the front of the box and across the bottom. This hibachi has five drawers. On the right side, there are three small drawers in graduated sizes for tongs and pokers, and two small drawers line the bottom of the brazier. Each drawer is trimmed with a darker wood. All the draw pull handles are hand crafted of bronze. An inner keyaki wood lip encloses the original copper-lined ash holder, and the hibachi’s trim is made of beautifully grained persimmon wood. Persimmon, a rare and highly prized wood in the ebony family, has a beautiful distinctive grain with orange, yellow or brown streaks in the black surface. Inset wooden finger holes with which to lift the hibachi are carved in curvilinear form on both ends. Finished on the top and all four sides, it views well from any angle. There is a finished slab of keyaki which sits atop of the side surface to protect it from burns.

Hibachi were finely crafted braziers used in old homes and shops to provide heat, warm sake and boil water for tea. Wooden hibachi were often designed for shops. They were meant to make a statement about the quality of the goods customers could expect to find there and to keep the storekeeper warm. As such, a lot of money and workmanship were lavished on these naga-hibachi. With a glass inset, these fine pieces make wonderful coffee tables, end tables or display cases for collectibles. (Enlargement Photo 12 shows an illustration of an Edo style hibachi used as a display case in “Japanese Accents in Western Interiors” by Rao and Mahoney, page 12.)

Although the tanuki is a real animal that resembles both a badger and raccoon, it is the mythical and magical tanuki which plays such a prominent role in countless Japanese legends and tales. Such a tanuki possesses the mystical powers to transform itself into any living or inanimate shape, and this mischievous animal is deeply entrenched in Japanese minds.

“Bunbuku Chagama” is an old Japanese folktale with numerous variations which gained popularity in Japan during the Edo period when tanuki were the subject of many folk stories and every family had an iron kettle kept hot above the family hearth. In one version of the tale, a tanuki is helped by a poor man who saved its life, so the tanuki turns into a chagama to help the old man make money. The woodsman sells the kettle to a priest, who in turn orders his assistants to clean it and use it to make tea. The tanuki-kettle was unhappy with temple life -- it was polished and used on the fire, which really hurt. So it returns to the woodsman, and thereafter makes money for the "woodsman turned traveling entertainer" by dancing as a kettle on a tightrope. In another version, a priest tries to catch a tanuki to eat for dinner, but the tanuki escapes by transforming itself into a tea kettle. The priest carries the kettle back to the temple, but when placed on the fire, the kettle sprouts arms, legs, a nose, and ears, and soon resumes its true tanuki shape. Artistic manifestation of this tale is seen on Japanese scroll paintings and on Japanese iron tea kettles like this one.

Produced mainly at the Seto kilns in Aichi Prefecture, oil plates were special flat plates with a unique perpendicular edge. They were placed on the lower level of the andon lantern where they were used to catch oil drippings and soot from the burnt wick or oil feeder above. These plates were in use from the mid-seventeenth century, when andon were first used indoors, until the early 1900’s, when the use of oil lamps and electric lights became widespread.

Most andon plates feature the design known as “tetsu-e” (“iron pictures”), the freestyle images painted in iron-oxide pigments directly onto the clay, frequently of sparse landscapes or subjects from nature. Some, such as this plate, were also further decorated with the copper green Oribe glaze. This type of oil plate is known as a “katagake” (“shoulder glazing”), with the thick green glaze on the top part of the plate and the brown tetsu-e pictures on the bottom. Andon plates with green Oribe glaze were produced mainly in Akatsu Village, which made pottery for and was protected by the Owari clan.

The fascination of aburazara for the collectors of Japanese folk art lies in their painted motifs. Their simple designs always possessed a spontaneous vitality, and the decoration on this plate is large in scale and freely executed. Considered a quintessential example of Japanese ceramic folk art, Seto oil plates are represented in most major collections of mingei or Japanese folk ceramics. See “Andon (Lantern) Plates” by Yamazaki Masumi, the cover article in DARUMA 42 for many wonderful examples of these oil plates, including Figure 6, which is similar in style to this one.

Surrounding the crest and filling each of the corners are a flying crane (“tsuru”), a long-tailed tortoise (“kame” or “minogame”) and “shochikubai” (pine, plum and bamboo). “Sho” represents the pine tree for longevity, “chiku” represents the bamboo for tenacity, and “bai” represents the plum tree with its blossoms for beauty. The crane is one of the luckiest and happiest symbols in Japanese animal lore, and it is most closely associated with the New Year and with marriage ceremonies. The tortoise is believed to live to an exceptional age, at which time it develops a flowing white tail. In the Japanese art design known as "tsuru to kame,” the tortoise is teamed with the crane, also a symbol of longevity, and the two animals frequently appear with pines, plums and bamboo, just as they do on this wonderful textile.

This futon cover is made of four panels of coarse hand spun woven cotton that have been hand sewn together to make a large rectangle. This is the only way authentic old futon covers were made in Meiji Japan because loom widths were narrow, typically 12 to 14 inches. The assembled futon cloth was then dyed using a rice paste resist and all natural dyes for the colors. Indigo textiles were the fabric of the countryside in Japan, and they are wonderful examples of Japanese folk art or mingei.

The “tsutsugaki” technique involves freely drawn designs that are applied to cotton with paste resist squeezed through a paper cone having a tubular metal tip. The textile is then dipped repeatedly in indigo dyes. Where the paste lines had once been, white lines now remain, outlining the design in sharp contrast to the deep indigo blue background. Country dyers produced tsutsugaki textiles -- often with mythical and auspicious designs -- as bedding, wrapping clothes, banners and celebratory textiles for weddings, births and other important events. These tsutsugaki textiles were part of a bride’s trousseau which parents prepared for their daughter as a prayer for the well being of her new family as well as her happiness, so great care was taken in their handling as they were regarded as necessary for an auspicious future.

CONDITION is excellent and near perfect. The futon cover has been washed and used, but there are no holes, tears, repairs or other problems. There are one or two very tiny brown spots here and there, but you have to look hard to see them. This Japanese folk textile has it all: the larger size, varying shades of indigo dyes, a family crest, numerous auspicious symbols, and great condition.

Seishoen’s works are highly regarded and are considered to be of similar caliber to those by more widely known studio potters such as Makuzu Kozan or Shofu. A signed Seishoen vase is featured in the world famous Khalili Collection, illustrated in “Treasures of Imperial Japan: Ceramics from the Khalili Collection” on pages 41 and 78.

The casting of the figure and the tiger on the “right” side is strongly rendered, and the bold relief decoration exceeds a half an inch (15 mm) in depth. The high relief stylized tiger (“tora”) with its open mouth and exaggerated features has its head turned upright towards the figure. The figure represents Kato Kiyomasa, one of the celebrated generals of the sixteenth century. As a Japanese art motif, Kiyomasa is sometimes shown killing a tiger (“Kiyomasa no Toragari”). On the “left” side, a poem written in running script characters is cast in low relief within a smooth-textured panel, making this kettle an example of an “uta-tetsubin” (a kettle showing a poem on its body as decoration). There is a low relief landscape scene surrounding the poem.

Fine ornamental tetsubin of this type were preferred by the upper classes for the sencha style tea ceremony. A common characteristic of sencha kettles was that one side more heavily decorated than the other. In the sencha tea ceremony a tetsubin, held by the host in his right hand, is looked at by the guest with the spout pointing to the right. This is the side of the tetsubin which is usually more ornately decorated in order to enable the guest to admire the kettle’s “best” side. High relief ornamental tetsubin like this one are magnificent examples of Japanese ironwork which are very much sought after by collectors today. (There are two tetsubin of similar style, i.e., high relief on one side and a poem on the other, in major museum collections which are illustrated in Figures No. 36 and 37 in TETSUBIN by P.L.W. Arts.)

Arita is a town on the island of Kyushu which has been a center of Japanese porcelain production since the seventeenth century. With Arita blue and whites, the blue is produced from a cobalt or indigo pigment and is painted straight onto the biscuit, after which the piece is glazed and fired. Ceramics for everyday use were made at the same kilns that were producing highly ornate, purely decorative wares primarily for export. Blue and white sometsuke porcelains with a karakusa designs are examples of wares made for the domestic Japanese market, and they are prized by Japanese collectors.