Illustrated is the inside
view of a Madara-Karatsu chawan that shows off the buttery softness of the
glaze which is randomly punctuated, like a night's sky with iron erupting out
of the surface and creating streaks thanks to gravity. This chawan was made by
scholar and potter Koyama Fujio during the 1960s and was a gift to then
Director of the Freer Gallery, John Alexander Pope. Besides this Koyama chawan,
Pope collected a number of pots, some gifts, some purchases which included
Kawai Kanjiro, Hamada Shoji, Koyama Fujio and an upcoming star at the time,
Okabe Mineo of which many of his pieces were then collected by a fellow curator
at the Freer and a friend of Pope's, after his death in 1982, Martin Amt. This
chawan was collected from Mr. Amt in the early 2000s along with several other
pieces and though such provenance is somewhat rare as one usually just ends up
with a pot, "origin; Japan" it is interesting to note the hands this
chawan traveled through from its "making and baking" to the present
day.
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