![A SHINO CHAWAN [TEA BOWL]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/CKS/2001_CKS_06547_0048_000(030749).jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Wood double storage box with the signature of the leading industrialist and collector Matsunaga Jian (Yasuzaemon, 1875-1971), aged ninety-four
The storage-box inscription confirms that this exceptional bowl was formerly in the collection of another great collector of tea ceramics, reflecting the immense prestige of Shino ceramics amongst elite Japanese connoisseurs during the early and mid twentieth century. For a Shino plate formerly in the collection of Masuda Takashi (1848-1938, see also lot 44), compare Christine M. E. Guth, Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1993), colour plate 2. The bridge motif is believed to allude to the Sumiyoshi shrine. For similar examples, also with a bridge design, see Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), cat. no. 100., Nezu Bijutsukan [Nezu Institute of Fine Arts], Momoyama no chato [Tea Ceramics of the Momoyama Period] (Tokyo, 1989), cat. no. 162, named Takao, in the Tokiwayama Bunko Foundation, Kamakura, and Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Tokyo National Museum], Nihon no toji [Japanese ceramics] (Tokyo, 1985), cat. no. 217, named Hashihime, in the collection of Tokyo National Museum.
The storage-box inscription confirms that this exceptional bowl was formerly in the collection of another great collector of tea ceramics, reflecting the immense prestige of Shino ceramics amongst elite Japanese connoisseurs during the early and mid twentieth century. For a Shino plate formerly in the collection of Masuda Takashi (1848-1938, see also lot 44), compare Christine M. E. Guth, Art, Tea, and Industry: Masuda Takashi and the Mitsui Circle (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1993), colour plate 2. The bridge motif is believed to allude to the Sumiyoshi shrine. For similar examples, also with a bridge design, see Miyeko Murase, Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art (New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000), cat. no. 100., Nezu Bijutsukan [Nezu Institute of Fine Arts], Momoyama no chato [Tea Ceramics of the Momoyama Period] (Tokyo, 1989), cat. no. 162, named Takao, in the Tokiwayama Bunko Foundation, Kamakura, and Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Tokyo National Museum], Nihon no toji [Japanese ceramics] (Tokyo, 1985), cat. no. 217, named Hashihime, in the collection of Tokyo National Museum.