Taihi Tenmoku Tea Bowl with Long-tailed Bird

At one time, monks at Buddhist temples in the Tianmu (J. tenmoku) mountains of China’s Zhejiang province used tea bowls decorated with an iron-rich black glaze. As a result, in Japan black-glazed tea bowls became known as tenmoku or tenmoku jawan. The term ‘taihi’ refers to the shell of a hawksbill—a type of sea turtle—and is therefore used to mean ‘tortoiseshell’. When a glaze consisting primarily of plant ash is applied over the layer of black glaze, the color after firing resembles tortoiseshell, giving this particular type of tenmoku teabowl its name of taihi-san or taihi tenmoku. In the Song and Yuan dynasties, the Jizhou kilns in Jiangxi Province specialized in the technique of applying two layers of glaze; this piece is thought to have been brought to Japan through trade between Japan and the Song and Yuan dynasties. Inside the dish we see motifs of a long-tailed bird and plum branch, achieved by placing paper stencils onto the first layer of glaze so that the ash glaze does did not adhere to these areas and thereby allowing the lower black glaze to be exposed.
This renowned tea bowl was previously owned by the Kaga domain Maeda family, and appears in the catalogue of famous teaware Taishō Meikikan by the tea devotee Takahashi Sōan (1861–1937). The black-ink calligraphy ‘taihi samu’ (tortoiseshell cup) on its box is reputed to be by the distinguished early Edo-period tea master Kanamori Sōwa (1584–1656).