A diminutive bowl in pale glaze decorated with Chidori birds soaring over waves engraved with a poem by Otagaki Rengetsu wrapped in a silk pouch and enclosed in an ancient wooden box. The text reads:
Chidori naku / Plovers cry Kamogawazutsumi / along the Kamo riverbank tsuki fuke te / the moon is high— sode ni oboyuru / settling on my sleeves in the deep of night yowa no hatsushimo. / the year's first frost.
The cup is 7 cm (just less than 3 inches) diameter, 3 cm (just more than 1 inch) tall and in excellent condition.
Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) was born into a samurai family, she was adopted into the Otagaki family soon after birth, and served as a lady in waiting in Kameoka Castle in her formative years, where she received an education worthy of a Lady of means. Reputed to be incredibly beautiful, she was married and bore three children; however, her husband and all children died before she was twenty. Remarried she bore another daughter, however that child too perished and her husband died while she was just 32. Inconsolable, she cut off her hair to join the nunnery at Chion-in Temple, where she renounced the world and received the name Rengetsu (Lotus Moon). However, this was not the end, but only the beginning of a career as artist and poet which would propel her to the top of the 19th century Japan literati art world.
