Tea Bowl with Landscape Design

Tea Bowl with Landscape Design
This slender-sided, wheel-thrown tea bowl is a rather wide example of the semi-cylindrical type. A hermitage in the mountains is depicted in underglaze iron and cobalt over a white slip ground on one side of the exterior of the bowl. On the opposite side is a poem by the Muromachi period poet Sanjônishi Sanetaka. The tea bowl is unglazed from the curve at the base down; the elegantly trimmed foot with its slender bottom offer a view of the clay body. The Kenzan signature is written vertically, on the side. This tea bowl can surely be counted as one of Kenzan's masterpieces.