Ōtagaki Rengetsu 大田垣蓮月 (1791-1875)
Set of Seven Sencha Tea Cups with Incised Poems
Seven sencha tea cups shaped and carved by Ōtagaki Rengetsu with her poems. The shard is dark and smooth, covered with a white rice ash glaze with fine crackles. Each cup was formed by Rengetsu's hand without a potter's wheel, giving the cups their beautiful irregular shape. The cups were held by the hand at the foot and were glazed by dipping them in the glaze, leaving traces of Renegtsu's fingerprints on the outside of the foot ring. After the cups were glazed, Rengetsu carved them with a fine bamboo tool. The carved poems reflect the change and beauty of the four seasons:
In the fields, in the mountains
delighted, deeply so,
returning to my bedroom
accompanied by
the autumn night moon.
White chrysanthemums
near my pillow
scent the night...
In my dream how many
autumns did I pass through?
Summer flows into the world
unfurling everywhere...
I am alone and cool
beneath the mountain´s
downstream waters.
In the mountains´s village
I´ve grown fond
of the soughing pines...
On days when the wind is not blowing,
how lonely it becomes!
The young
willow fronds
are short
and look to me
like children´s hair.
This gentleman
grows and grows
auspiciously...
learn from it and
you will ever flourish.
Beneath green willows
in the downstream waters,
his shadow visible...
the flowing voice of
the spring´s bush warbler.
A similar set of ten tea cups from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection has been published in: Frank Feltens (ed.): Japan in the Age of Modernization: The Arts of Ōtagaki Rengetsu and Tomioka Tessai, Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press (2023), p.52.
Other similar cups for sencha and sake, especially in terms of shards and glaze quality can be found in: Black Robe, White Mist: Art of the Japanese Buddhist Nun Rengetsu, National Gallery of Australia (2007), p.29 and p.94.
Collections:
Tokyo National Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Harvard Art Museum, National Gallery of Australia, Miho Museum, LACMA Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many more...