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Ao-Oribe chawan with painted figures and vine scrollwork, Mino ware from Shōwa period

Name: Japanese Ao-Oribe chawan iron brushwork Mino ware Showa | KAIKO&CO
Brand: KAIKO&CO
Availability: InStock

from €155.00

Intro paragraphs

The first thing you notice is the collision of opposites. On one face, bold dark figures stride across a cream ground in a repeating procession, painted with the kind of confidence that does not hesitate. Turn the bowl and the motif shifts entirely: a scrolling vine arabesque in the same iron brushwork, curling and looping across the surface. Then the green glaze interrupts everything. It tips over the rim from both sides, drips down the wall, and floods the interior with a deep copper-green that shifts toward teal where it pools thickest. The form does not behave either: the rim is uneven, the walls slightly irregular, the whole shape carrying a deliberate looseness that makes it feel alive in the hand.

This is a chawan in the Ao-Oribe tradition, one of the most irreverent ceramic styles Japan produced. From the Mino region of Gifu Prefecture, Ao-Oribe takes its name from tea master Furuta Oribe (古田織部), whose aesthetic philosophy embraced asymmetry, bold brushwork, and what he called hyōge: a spirit of wit and ease. A bowl made in this tradition was never meant to be precious. It was made to be picked up without ceremony, to improve with handling, and to grow more interesting the longer it is used.

Whisk:

Intro paragraphs

What makes this chawan special

The up close look and feel

The stoneware body is rough and sandy toward the foot where the glaze thins, smooth and finely crackled through the glazed middle. In the hand the bowl has a settled weight that feels right for tea.

The copper-green glaze on the interior catches light differently as you tilt it: olive where it spreads thin, deepening toward teal where it gathers. The rim is uneven enough to notice the first time your lip meets it, which is exactly the point.

Charming details

The green shift in the pooled interior glaze is not a separate pigment. The same copper oxide that produces the surface green behaves differently under thickness and slower cooling, pulling toward deep teal where the glaze gathers most. It is the same glaze, but denser.

In the history of Japanese ceramics, this unpredictable behavior was considered a mark of the kiln's character.

You only see it fully when you hold the bowl up and look inside.

- What the bowl carries is the full visual language of the Ao-Oribe tradition: the split composition with figures on one face and vine scrollwork on the other, the copper-green glaze applied in deliberate asymmetry, the uneven rim. They are the choices of someone who knew exactly what they were making.
- This chawan carries a circular impressed seal in tensho script on the base.
- Mino ware (美濃焼), Gifu Prefecture, Japan. Ao-Oribe style (青織部).
- The Mino region, centered around the cities of Toki and Tajimi in Gifu Prefecture, has produced ceramics for over 1,300 years and is Japan's most prolific ceramic region.
- Ao-Oribe emerged in the late Momoyama period under the aesthetic direction of Furuta Oribe and remains an active tradition today.
- This chawan dates to ca. the Shōwa period most likely ca. 1970 to 1980 based on the style.
- Size: ca. 11.5 cm diameter and ca. 7.6 cm high
- Weight: ca. 291 gr.
- Condition: Excellent, no chips, no cracks, no repairs
- Looks to be unused
- A chasen can be added. This is the bamboo whisk you use to prepare matcha.
- This one is vintage, sourced in Japan alongside the bowl.
- The tines are hand-split from a single piece of bamboo and have the slight irregularity that comes with age and careful use.
- It works, and it looks right next to a bowl like this.
- If you are new to matcha, starting with a chasen that has already been used is a gentle way in. If you already have one you love, skip it.
- Mino ware stoneware with partially unglazed areas. Never put this bowl in the dishwasher.
- Rinse by hand with lukewarm water and allow the unglazed lower exterior and foot ring to dry fully before storing.
- Before your first use, rinse the interior with warm water to let the clay adjust gradually.
- The crackle pattern in the glaze is natural and will deepen over time with use.