Although the teapot here is stored in a separate box from the five cups, these six pieces may once have been part of a tea set that included other tools such as a water cooler. The teacups have orchid flowers on both sides in underglaze blue, as well as a blue band inside the footring. The teapot has the same design and a blue band painted around the bottom of the lid’s knob. The cups’ long wood storage box is stamped on the exterior, over the lid and base, with a small red seal reading “Satō.” The same seal appears on five small squares of yellow textile, one placed in the bottom of each compartment in the teacup storage box. These are additional to the customary yellow cloths stamped with a “Seifu” seal. Interestingly, four of the Seifū cloths are stamped with an ovoid seal, while the remaining cloth, which is a slightly lighter color, has an unusual seal that is not quite gourd-shaped and with the fū of Seifū in a stylized, unrecognizable form. The teapot has its own box with a Satō seal and is wrapped with an orange textile stamped with the same unusual Seifū seal. A set with a very similar surface design is in the Brooklyn Museum. The Brooklyn set has a water cooler and a small pitcher, in addition to the teapot and cups, and all are in a single storage box.
View the original at Cleveland Museum of Art →Unusually for a Japanese statute it opens with a preamble, which states that finding joy in creating culture and living among it is an unchanging wish of people, and that culture contributes to world peace. Article 2 then sets the principles: the autonomy of those who make culture must be fully respected, and their creativity, standing and capacity considered.
The cool part. Article 2, paragraph 3 is the line worth reading twice. It says that creating and receiving culture is a right people are born with, and requires an environment in which citizens can appreciate, participate and create regardless of age, disability, economic situation, or the area they live in. Four barriers named in statute, one of which is your postcode. It puts the arts in the same grammatical register as infrastructure. Not a subsidy argued for each year, a standing obligation.
Verify at e-Gov 法令検索 →Use it A motif small enough to blind-deboss, which is where restraint actually shows.
Description source: museum curator text — not generated