Kuro-Raku Chawan 'Saru' — Gold Zodiac Calligraphy by Kawasaki Waraku

Experience Authentic Japan Art with this Kuro Raku Chawan. This Japanese Zodiac Chawan serves as a Kuro Raku Tea Bowl and Zodiac Year of Monkey Gift, featuring Gold Calligraphy Pottery and Raku Kiln Chawan—a must-have for any Art Collector drawn to Kyoto Tea Ceremony and Hand-Formed Raku Ware.

🔹 [ BASIC DETAILS ]
• Artist: Kawasaki Waraku (川崎和楽), Waraku Kiln, Kyoto
• Technique: Kuro-raku — hand-formed low-fired black raku, gold calligraphic inscription of the 申 (Monkey) zodiac character
• Era: 2010 – 2019
• Origin: Kyoto, Japan
• Dimensions: Height approx. 8 cm, Diameter approx. 10.5 cm
• Box: Tomobako (artist-signed wooden box) with 申字茶碗 inscription on lid
• Condition: Very good — no chips, no cracks. Glaze surface intact with characteristic granular raku texture.

🔹 [ CULTURAL & ARTISTIC INSIGHT ]
Kuro-raku chawan descend directly from Chōjirō, the founder of Raku ware in 16th-century Kyoto, who shaped the first bowls for Sen no Rikyū's tea practice. The tradition has never moved far from that origin: slow hands, low fire, a clay body that holds warmth. What Kawasaki Waraku adds here is a single stroke of gold — the character 申, the Monkey of the Chinese zodiac cycle — placed on the black field not as decoration but as declaration. The character is brush-painted before the final glaze firing, fusing permanence with the spontaneity of the calligrapher's hand.

In the tea room, the Year of the Monkey bowl carries dual time: the year it was made and every twelfth year that echoes it. Holding it is to hold a specific moment in a repeating cycle — time made tactile. The gold does not gild; it locates.

🔹 [ DEEP-DIVE COMMENTARY ]
Kuro-raku — black raku — achieves its depth through a high-lead or iron-saturated glaze fired at approximately 800–900°C in a small raku kiln. The low temperature produces the characteristic granular, slightly porous surface visible here: not the smooth glass of high-fire stoneware, but a surface that seems to breathe. Natural light shifts across it differently minute to minute.

The hand-forming process (te-zukuri) means no two Raku bowls share a silhouette. This bowl's slightly irregular lip — visible in profile — is not imperfection but evidence of authorship. The potter's thumb and palm shaped the clay wall directly, and the slight undulation records that contact.

Kawasaki Waraku operates within the broader Raku lineage that has been passed through Kyoto kilns for four centuries. A zodiac chawan (eto chawan) is a specific sub-genre: produced in the year of the corresponding zodiac animal, often gifted at New Year or kept to mark a personal birth year. The 申 (Monkey) year last occurred in 2016 — this bowl almost certainly dates from that year, making it both a functional tea bowl and a calendrical artifact.

For collectors, zodiac eto chawan represent an intersection of tea practice and temporal commemoration. They are produced in limited quantities for a specific year, then no longer made in that form for another twelve years. The gold 申 on kuro-raku — calligraphy over the oldest surviving Japanese ceramic tradition — is an image that holds without effort.

The chalk-white unglazed foot ring, exposed at the base, is a signature of Raku ware: where the glaze ends, the raw clay body speaks.

[ JAPANESE DESCRIPTION / 日本語解説 ]
川崎和楽（和楽窯・京都）による黒楽茶碗。黒楽の深い釉景の中央に、金で大書された「申」の一字が静かに輝く。

黒楽茶碗の系譜は、十六世紀の千利休と楽家初代・長次郎に始まる。低温焼成と手づくねによって生まれるこの茶碗は、高火度磁器の滑らかさとは異なる、粒状で呼吸するような肌合いを持つ。釉の表面を手で触れれば、その焼きの温度と、土の素直さが伝わってくる。

干支茶碗（えとちゃわん）は、その干支の年に制作され、正月の茶席や、生まれ年を同じくする人への贈り物として珍重されてきた。申年（2016年）に焼かれたであろうこの一碗は、その年の記憶を釉の中に封じ込め、十二年に一度の回帰として時間を可視化している。金の「申」字は装飾ではなく、時を指し示す刻印である。

和楽窯の印が据えられた共箱の蓋表には「申字茶碗」の銘が墨書されており、作品の出所と真贋の証として機能する。高台の白い素地が露わになる部分は、楽焼の象徴的な景色であり、釉が終わる場所で土が語り始める。

状態は良好。欠け・ひびなく、釉面も健全。

🔹 [ SHIPPING & PACKAGING ]
• Dispatch: Within 1-6 business days
• Carrier: Japan Post EMS / UPS (with tracking)
• Packaging: Carefully wrapped with protective materials