LATE KAMAKURA PERIOD (14TH CENTURY)

For similar piece from this important medieval kiln group located some forty miles west of Kyoto, see Jackie Menzies and Edmund Capon, Japan: Masterpieces from the Idemitsu Collection (Sydney, 1982), cat. no. 57; Kawahara Masahiko, Nihon toji taikei [A compendium of Japanese ceramics], vol. 9, Tanba (Tokyo, Heibonsha, 1975), cat. no. 35 (in the Japan Folk Crafts Museum) and Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Tokyo National Museum], Nihon no toji [Japanese ceramics] (Tokyo, 1985), cat. no. 118. Like Shigaraki wares (see lot numbers 52 and 54), Tanba wares are an unglazed ceramic, deriving their surface decoration from natural wood-ash glaze released in the kiln during the firing process. Although originally utilitarian, such wares came to be appreciated for their simple, rustic qualities by early tea ceremony masters, and this taste was revived during the early twentieth century by businessmen connoisseurs such as Masuda Takashi (see also lot numbers 44 and 48) and Tanakamaru Zenpachi.