PietroParis

Furthermore, the seller will not ship it, you have to pick it up in a middle-of-nowhere village.

Ahem...

...but not as rusty as this Namitoshi!

Tatsutoshi on Yahoo! Japan. Cheap, unpapered and kinda rusty:

While I fully agree that the signature looks bogus, a fake Tomotada is not necessarily a fake netsuke altogether. It's true that the decoration of the clothes looks particularly sloppy, but it might in turn have been added later – clearer pictures would be needed to discern possible traces of an electric tool. Also, it looks like most of the ink highlights were lost, perhaps in a misguided attempt at cleaning. I would not yet rule out the possibility of a piece made in Japan in the 19th century (or early 20th century). This would still be considered collectible, although certainly not as valuable as an 18th-century Tomotada.

I suppose the suggestion was that the kirikomi was added to conceal a pre-existing hagire, no?

Your guess would have been justified, since Tatsutoshi's "Ido" school is supposed to be an offshoot of the Akao school (see the genealogy towards the end of the first page of this thread).

Unpapered Tatsutoshi on Yahoo! Japan. Not sure about the authenticity, but it went quite cheap:

The main problem here is deciphering the handwriting... I think that the first word after "SUJET" is "ajouré", which as far as I understand is the word used in French for sukashi.

Here it is, of course my whipping technique leaves much to be desired...

Thanks Mark! For the time being I can only answer that in hand the bowl feels somewhat more compact (I mean, smaller and heavier) than I expected from the pictures, but that's not a bad thing for me. The tearoom is in fact my living room, and I am afraid that every time I prepare a matcha bowl a tea master kills himself... Anyway I'll make some tea over the weekend and try to take a picture.

The bowl has arrived, here are some more pictures:

The pictures of the first one are blurry and show only one side, they might mask the most obvious defects. The overall impression is of a cast piece, and it is reinforced by the fact that Dale could quickly show an identical piece (one out of many, it seems) that is even more obviously cast. The owner can of course cling to the hope that hers is the only original, or she can make 2+2...

I can clearly see casting bubbles on the eBay example, and I have no reason to believe that the one in the original post is any different.

The "soft" contours of the decoration suggest a cast piece.

Thanks again! I may have misunderstood what the (Japanese) person who translated the writing in a FB ceramics group had told me, i.e. that the two characters are 家元 (iemoto). Then someone else had indeed identified the iemoto in question as 堀内宗完 Hori(no)uchi Sokan. So either the first person mixed up 家元 and 宗完 (there are indeed several parts in common in both kanji) or he just meant that the characters refer to the name of the iemoto, not that they read iemoto.

I don't think 平砂 is meant as the potter's name, but rather as the name of the bowl. See for example this other box I have: Incidentally, I was later told that the arrow with question mark under the lid points to 家元 (iemoto, or head master) followed by the kao of the tea master who picked the name. Indeed, this is something that would not usually be done by the potter himself.

Thanks so much Steve! Google translates 平砂 as "flat sand", I wonder if this has any particular meaning in the context of the tea ceremony. P.S. not that it matters, but the Japanese seller described the bowl as "Shōwa period (1926-1989)". The bad faith is quite breathtaking...

Hi All, I've just bought on Catawiki a Hagi-style tea bowl made by one 吉弘達彦 Yoshihiro Tatsuhiko, a seemingly little-known potter who, according to a google search, doubles as karate teacher in Hiroshima: The writing on the front of the box is not problematic: 梅華皮 kairagi (literally "plum flower skin", this kind of glaze) 茶盌 chawan 達彦 Tatsuhiko However, I am stuck with the writing under the lid: I can only make out the full name of the potter in the last (leftmost) column. Could anyone here please help me read the first three columns? Thanks in advance for any help!

Tatsutoshi on eBay, crazy expensive:

Tatsutoshi on Yahoo! Japan, with somewhat unusual inlays:

Sorry, I know next to nothing about kinko tsuba and these are all those that 1) attracted my attention and 2) were in a position where they could be easily photographed.

That was one of the few "old iron" pieces on show. It looks like Mr. Baur was much more interested in decorative kinko pieces.