A
friend I share pictures with sent me this photo a while back and when I read
the label, I was like, wait, who? This chawan is by Bizen legend, Mori Togaku
and when his name springs to mind I think of his massive kiln, large, and I
mean large storage jars and a variety of Bizen fired pots from chadogu and
beyond. What doesn't come to mind is wood fired glazed pottery as this
illustration clearly is and before you ask, it is marked with his mark and the
box is clearly signed but the aesthetic is just not what I normally think of.
Now admittedly, I may be out of the loop or just not up on the totality of Mori
Togaku but if I were pressed to identify
this piece from just this single photo, Mori would not be in my top 50
answers. Actually at first glance I thought it had a bit of a Mino-Iga vibe like
the surfaces of some of Mizuno Takuzo's pots though obviously not by him
either, honestly I just wouldn't have narrowed it down to Mori Togaku. As irony
would have it, once I received these photos, plucked from the electronic ether,
I actually ran in to a second piece glazed in a similar but not identical
manner so my suspicion is there are a number of these pots out there. For my
last confession, I have really not followed the work of Mori Togaku all that
much, not sure exactly why and despite the fact that I realize he makes some
wonderful pieces he is just not really on my constant radar. I really like the
two pots of this style I ran in to and would love to see more, especially a
mizusashi but since these are the only two examples I have seen in thirty years
I suspect it may be a while before I see another or with the way things work,
perhaps tomorrow.
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