A rare tea bowl by Living National Treasure Hamada Shōji, enclosed in the original signed wooden box bearing inscriptions by both Hamada and the fifteenth-generation head of Urasenke, Sen Sōshitsu XV (Hōunsai) titled Jigake Tetsu-e Chawan. The box lid bears Hōunsai's signature and seal, while Hamada placed his own inscription and seal on the underside of the box. This unusual arrangement gives precedence to the tea master's inscription and strongly suggests that the box was prepared with Hōunsai's participation in mind, creating a particularly intimate association between one of modern Japan's most important potters and one of its foremost tea masters. The bowl itself is characteristically direct. A softly rounded body rises from a compact foot to an open, subtly irregular rim, its exterior covered in a subdued grey-green jigake ground whose granular surface allows the character of the clay to remain visible. Across one side Hamada has brushed a spare iron design in warm ochre and deep brown: looping strokes encircle a small cluster of darker marks, hovering somewhere between plant form and pure calligraphic gesture. There is no attempt at symmetry or elaborate pictorial decoration; a handful of assured strokes is enough to animate the entire surface. The interior provides a quiet counterpoint in warm buff tones, while the exposed edge of the foot reveals the reddish Mashiko clay beneath. The bowl is 13 cm (just over 5 inches) diameter, 9.2 cm (3-3/4 inches) tall and in perfect condition.
Hamada Shoji was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1894. In 1913, at the age of 19, he entered the Ceramics Department of the Tokyo Higher Technical School (now the Tokyo Institute of Technology) where he formed a friendship with senior student Kawai Kanjiro. In 1918 after visiting an exhibition, Yanagi Soetsu introduced him to the important British potter Bernard Leach, and the history of ceramic art was forever changed. The following year, he moved to England with Leach where he lived in St. Ives. After returning to Japan (1924), he spent time in Okinawa studying and appreciating the Tsuboya pottery of the island region. He then stayed with Kanjiro in Kyoto, where he, Yanagi, and Kanjiro established the principles of the Mingei movement. Hamada then chose to establish his own kiln in the sleepy northern town of Mashiko. He worked incessantly to further the Mingei ideals, using local clays and materials, and became mentor to any number of artist both domestic and from abroad. He was named a Living National Treasure in 1955. One of the most influential and sought after of all Japanese Ceramic artists. There is no shortage of reading material for those who would like to learn more about this potter.
Hōunsai Sen Genshitsu (1923-2025) was the fifteenth-generation Grand Master of the Urasenke tradition of tea and one of the most influential figures in the international development of chanoyu in the modern era. Born in Kyoto as Sen Masaoki, the eldest son of the fourteenth Grand Master, Mugensai, he studied at Doshisha University before being called into the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Pacific War, where he served in a special attack unit but survived the war without being ordered on a final mission. He later undertook Zen training at Daitokuji and received the name Hōunsai from the Zen master Gotō Zuigan. In 1964 he succeeded his father as the fifteenth Urasenke Grand Master, assuming the hereditary name Sen Sōshitsu. During his thirty-eight years as head of the school, Hōunsai worked tirelessly to introduce the Way of Tea internationally, traveling more than three hundred times to over sixty countries and promoting his lifelong ideal of “Peacefulness through a Bowl of Tea” (Ichawan kara Peacefulness o). He received the Order of Culture in 1997 and served in numerous international cultural and diplomatic roles, including as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and Japan–United Nations Goodwill Ambassador. In 2002 he passed the position of Grand Master to his son, the sixteenth-generation Zabōsai, thereafter taking the name Sen Genshitsu and the title of Grand Master Emeritus (Daisōshō). He continued to promote tea as a means of cultural understanding and peace until his death in 2025 at the age of 102.
