This sake pourer is of a type called a chōshi. It is elaborately decorated with flowers in overglaze enamels in several colors, including black for the contour lines of leaves and stems; orange, white, gold, and two shades of green for the peonies; and purple for the thistles. The white blossoms have been built up with white enamel, then incised for a white-on-white eect; the orange and purple use an absence of color to produce the contours of individual petals. Yohei III referred to his works in multicolor overglaze enamels as “hundred flower brocades” (hyakka nishiki). Two small nyoi (C. ruyi) staff-head motifs, molded in clay and applied to either side of the lid, create handle rests, as well as natural places for the thumb and index finger of one hand to rest, so one can both secure the lid and steady the pour, while the handles are held in the other hand. The top of a nyoi staff resembles the curled cap of the reishi. Such scepters are imagined to be found in the hands of sages, Daoist immortals, or Buddhist deities and connote lofty goings-on and favorable circumstances. Since this sake pourer is unsigned, it may have been made for imperial family members to give as a gift.
View the original at Cleveland Museum of Art →A craft cannot call itself traditional by taste or reputation. Article 2 sets five conditions, all of which must hold: it is used mainly in daily life, the main part of its making is by hand, it is made by traditional techniques, it is made chiefly from materials traditionally used, and a not-small number of people in a defined area still make it. The designation names the techniques, the materials and the region.
The cool part. Two conditions do quiet work. The first is daily use, so a technique kept alive only for display does not qualify. The fifth is the number of makers: the law will not protect a single surviving genius, because one person is a biography and not an industry. And because the region is written into the designation, the craft is legally attached to a place and cannot move.
Verify at e-Gov 法令検索 →Use it Palette for a single-colour run: one ink, heavy stock, nothing else on the sheet.
Description source: museum curator text — not generated