The pot that got me thinking about this again is this particular Shino, wood fired chawan, the box is clearly marked Ko-Shino while accompanying the pot is a personal letter by the potter in which he refers to the piece as Oni-Shino, together with this letter is also a placard (with corresponding number) from his exhibition where it is clearly written; Oni-Shino Chawan along with the original price. Pardon me if I am a bit confused but I think I would have originally gone with the box inscription first and foremost but the two “goes-withs” do leave me wondering, which is it and is the box or the letter the best way to describe the bowl? I think I will stick with the hako-gaki and assume when it was boxed, Ko-Shino was exactly what it was, end of story.
Monday, January 26, 2026
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Over the years I have seen and handled quite a few pots by
Tsukigata Nahiko. In that time I have seen a wide array of descriptive terms
used when signing the box where sometimes a pot is just, “Oni-Shino” and other
times it is “Kujaku Oni-Shino” or any number of other descriptions. To this
day, I am never quite sure where Tsukigata draws the line, well a fine line in
how exactly he decides to describe a piece, telling you exactly what you are
looking at, but what’s in a name after all?
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