Reference Book – IDEMITSU Museum of Arts – Kosometsuke and Shonzui Porcelain

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Sharing with you this very nice book from Japan with many beautiful pictures and descriptions of Kosometsuke and Shonzui porcelain.

‘Kosometsuke and Shonzui: The Blue and White Tea Ceramics of Japanese Admiration’

Foreword
Chinese ceramics were brought to Japan as treasures as early as the Kofun Jitfi period (4th century), and
were imported in large quantities after the latter half of the 8th century. For a long time, they maintained an
inimitable quality, unsurpassed by any other country. Called karamono, literally meaning items from
China, these ceramics were highly valued in Japan and their authority was even passed on to the modern
tea masters.

As wabi-cha type tea ceremony was established in the late Muromachi period, tea masters
began to seek for tea utensils to match their style. They chose and even ordered items from China
(karamono) that met the Japanese esthetic standards. Representative of such ceramics were blue and white
ware, called kosomersuke and shonzui in Japanese. These ceramics were fired in the folk
kilns of Jingdezhen at the end of the Ming period (early 17th century). The first director of the
Idemitsu Museum, Sazo Idemitsu, who practiced cha-no-yu and had the pseudonym of
Choseki-an, is known to have collected many tea ceramics. Not only are kosometsuke and shonzui
displayed in this show as a genre of Chinese ceramics, but they are shown as items treasured by the late
Sazo Idemitsu. e hope that you will enjoy the Japanese esthetics which the tea masters had discovered in
the Chinese ceramics.

2013, Idemitsu Museum of Arts
63 pages
In new condition