OUT OF THE BOX II

Illustrated is a detail shot of a futamono, covered box by Matsubayashi Hosai XIV, what makes this piece a bit different is just exactly what you are looking at. The Matsubayashi family have made Asahi-yaki for generations and what that means in broad terms is that using local materials, local to the Kyoto environs, their pottery is similar to gohonde spotted wares one normally thinks of as Hagi ware but it has its own unique qualities as you delve deeper into the pottery. The covered box which I recently handled and photographed will become a slideshow video at some point but I thought its unique character and Chinese influenced surface shows just how Hosai continues a tradition while thinking a bit outside the box. This surface is lush, exotic and well suited to the piece which is intended as a sweets box, thrown out of a fine stoneware clay the piece is glazed right up to the edges which have developed thick rolls of glaze without the lid and bottom being permanently affixed. Like the more traditional Asahi-yaki made by Matsubayashi Hosai XIV, this futamono is precisely thrown, well crafted and the glaze is applied with perfection, though not the normal pottery one would expect from this potter it is obvious that this was not his first attempt at such an uncompromising and demanding surface.