A Kyoto-ware chawan whose warm cream body carries the classical kai-awase motif — shell-shaped medallions enclosing miniature landscapes, human figures, and pine trees, rendered in polychrome enamels and gold. By Tsugitsu Kozanzan. Presented in its original tomobako.
Kai-awase was a Heian court game in which paired shells were matched by the painted scenes inside. On this bowl, each shell medallion contains a world: a cloaked figure in deep green, a distant mountain, a stand of pine. Gold hatching fills the ground between shells, and scattered gold motifs drift across the reverse in quiet constellation.
Kyoto-ware (Kyo-yaki) has long occupied the apex of Japanese decorative ceramics. Its painters worked in the tradition of court art — refined, literary, and attuned to seasonal reference. This bowl belongs to that tradition: the imagery is specific, the execution deliberate, the intention to bring the elegance of Heian culture into the tea space.
The form itself is generous and rounded, with a slightly flared rim — suitable for both thin tea (usucha) and thick tea (koicha).
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