It is as if drifts of snow have piled up on the garden stones, leaving dark recesses filled with shadow in the low winter light on this fabulous covered water jar for use in the Japanese Maccha Tea Ceremony by Kimura Morinobu enclosed in the original signed wooden box titled Kuroji Kakewake Hakuyu Mizusashi. It is 15.5 cm (6 inches) diameter, 22.5 cm (9 inches) tall and in excellent condition. This is one style for which Morinobu is very well known and unique to him. It comes with a wooden lid custom cut from Keyaki with a silver handle.
Kimura Morinobu (b. 1932) was one of three born into a pottery family in Kyotos Higashiyama pottery district. He attended the Kyoto Municipal School of Art graduating from the sculpture division, and entered the Kyoto Ceramic Research Facility, the stomping grounds of so many of the brightest talents in modern Japanese Pottery. After apprenticing under both his brother, Morikazu, and Living National Treasure Shimizu Uichi, he established his own kiln in 1967. His list of exhibitions is much too long to put down here, he was named an intangible Cultural Property (Mukei Bunkazai) of Kyoto Prefecture in 1992. Works by the artist are held in the Kyoto National Museum among others.
