Lot 2523. Property of a Gentleman. An heirloom 'haikatsugi tenmoku' tea bowl, possibly Chayang kiln, Southern Song - Yuan dynasty, and a mother-of-pearl inlaid black lacquer bowl stand, late Ming dynasty; bowl d. 12, bowl stand d. 16.5 cm, Japanese wood box. Lot Sold 330,200 HKD (Estimate 400.000 - 600.000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2023

Note: The current bowl, with an ash-like silvery glaze draped over its dark stoneware body, belongs to a group of bowls known as haikatsugi tenmoku (ash-covered). Far from what one may infer from the term, however, the iconic iridescent ‘ash-covered’ glaze of such bowls is due to the uneven fires in the kilns. 

Haikatsugi tenmoku bowls are generally attributed to the Chayang kilns in Nanping city, Fujian Province (see Hsieh Ming-Liang, ‘Guanyu huibei chawan’ [On haikatsugi tea bowls], Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, vol. 454, January 2021, pp. 62-77.) While it has been proposed by some scholars that two different glazes were applied before the firing of these bowls, Hsieh argues that craftsmen merely applied two layers of the same glaze before the firing, with the first application being thinner.

Similar extant pieces of Haikatsugi tenmoku, though remarkably rare, include the ‘Yuhi Tenmoku’ from the Wakashu Sakai family collection, the ‘Niji Tenmoku’ at The Agency for Cultural Affairs, and the ‘Akiba’ preserved at the MOA Museum of Art, Atami, respectively illustrated in Guanyu huibei chawan’ [On haikatsugi tea bowls], nos 5 and 6, as well as Karamono Tenmoku: Tenmoku Excavated from Jian Kiln in Fujian Province and Tenmoku from Japan: Special Exhibition, Tokyo, 1994, cat. no. 23. Compare also a collection of Chayang ware tea bowls preserved at the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, such as one preserved in Japan until 1911 when Charles Lang Freer purchased it from Shinsuke Hayashi before gifting it to the Freer Gallery of Art in 1920, accession no. F1911.355.

Sotheby's. Karamono: Heirlooms of Chinese Art from Medieval Japan, Hong Kong, 9 October 2023