Ohi Choraku Black Ohi-yaki Chawan Kanazawa Tea Bowl Tomobako

Ohi Choraku's black chawan does not absorb light — it organizes it. Ohi-yaki black glaze carries the rough, speckled texture of a surface that emerged from the kiln already knowing its purpose: to hold tea, to hold the hand, to hold the silence that accumulates in Kanazawa's tea tradition. A signed Ohi Choraku chawan with tomobako, representing the continuity of Japan's most prestigious regional tea ware lineage. The thick walls, the organic form — this is authorship made tangible in clay.

[ BASIC DETAILS ]
• Artist: Ohi Choraku (大樋長楽)
• Style: Ohi-yaki (Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture)
• Glaze: Deep black with speckled texture
• Storage: Dark wood tomobako (artist's box)
• Condition: Good condition; minor age-consistent marks

[ CULTURAL INSIGHT ]
The Ohi kiln was established in 1666 when Chozaemon — brought from Kyoto by tea master Ura Senke's Senno Sotan — settled in Kanazawa under the patronage of the Maeda clan. The lineage has continued for over three hundred and fifty years, each generation bearing the name Ohi Chozaemon or Choraku and maintaining the distinctive amber and black glazes that define the tradition.

Ohi-yaki is among the few Japanese kiln traditions where the authorship is inseparable from the object. To hold an Ohi Choraku bowl is to hold a link in a chain that runs from the seventeenth century to the present — each generation's work building on, and in conversation with, what came before. The cultural weight here is not metaphorical. It is structural.

[ DEEP DIVE ]
The black Ohi glaze is composed of iron-rich urushi mixed with ash and clay, fired at relatively low temperatures in a way that produces the characteristic rough, organic surface texture. Unlike the smooth blacks of Raku or the controlled glossiness of some Seto wares, Ohi black has a quality that suggests the earth the clay came from — not refined away from its origin, but held close to it.

The tomobako accompanying this piece carries the artist's seal and calligraphy, functioning as authentication and as its own object of cultural significance. To separate a chawan from its tomobako is to lose part of the conversation the artist initiated.

【日本語】
大樋長楽による大樋焼黒茶碗。力強い黒釉と荒々しい景色が金沢茶道の精神を体現しています。大樋家は1666年の創窯以来、裏千家ゆかりの茶碗を作り続ける名門。共箱付き、状態良好。

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