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Japanese tea sets

Japanese tea sets remain treasured pieces within decorative arts, admired for their refined craftsmanship, cultural significance and understated beauty. Often designed for two or five people, different sets are shaped by distinct uses and customs. A kyusu teapot often has a side handle and is ideal for everyday brewing, while a wide chawan bowl is used for whisking matcha — the materials and specific design of each set help enhance the flavour and experience of drinking tea.

Historic ceramic traditions such as Kutani and Tokoname are celebrated for their distinctive clays and glazing techniques, producing styles that range from delicate hand-painted porcelain to rustic, wabi-sabi-inspired stoneware steeped in ritual and serenity.

A GEORGE I RED AND GILT-JAPANNED BUREAU-CABINET decorated overall with Chinoiserie figures in European poses hunting, riding and drinking tea, the upper section with broken arched cresting with cavetto cornice later-decorated with gilt scrolls and masks and centred and flanked by urns, above a pair of mirror-backed doors with later arched plates and enclosing an interior with pigeon-holes flanking a pair of concave-fronted doors enclosing a further drawer, above six variously-sized drawers, with two candle slides, the base with hinged slope enclosing a green velvet-lined writing surface, pigeon-holes and drawers flanking a central door and a pair of fluted-column secret drawers, with slide-topped well, above two short and two long drawers, a waved apron and bun feet, restorations and some redecoration, the back feet replaced

A JAPANESE SIX PIECE SILVER TEA AND COFFEE SERVICE ON TWO HANDLED TRAY, the tray stamped MIYAMOTO SHOKO TOKYO and chop mark, the remainder with same chop mark, and a turtle enclosed by a triangle, the underside of the bases (excluding tray) engraved with date 1902 , and script monogram, comprising tea kettle, stand and lamp, teapot, long necked coffee pot, two handled covered sugar bowl, cream jug and waste bowl, each compressed spherical with reeded corners, with finely punched ground, on rim foot, chased with broad frieze of flowering ruffled irises rising from watery ground, with frond and iris scroll handles to the coffee pot, sugar bowl and cream jug, the detachable cover with swirling irises with iris finial, the pots with part decorated scroll spout, the teapot and kettle with fixed overhead decorated handle, the kettle on conforming circular stand, each frond scroll support headed by flower, with decorated burner-- tea kettle on stand over handle--13½in. (34.2cm.) high , the conforming oval tray engraved with same monogram, iris decorated border, the two frond handles issuing from border-- length over handles 25½in. (64.7cm.), gross weight 225oz. (7)

A Furosaki Byobu [Tea Screen]

EDO PERIOD (18TH CENTURY)

A MINIATURE IMITATION-BRONZE TEA SCOOP ( CHAGO )

MEIJI PERIOD (LATE 19TH CENTURY), SIGNED ZESHIN (SHIBATA ZESHIN; 1807-1891)