A pair of gourd-shaped Tokkuri colored with blue, green, yellow and aubergine over white fading to purple by Living National Treasure Tokuda Masahiko ‘(Yasokichi III) enclosed in the original signed wooden box.Each is 9 cm (3-1/2 inches) diameter, 17 cm (6-3/4 inches) tall and in perfect condition.
Tokuda Yasokichi III (Masahiko, 1933-2009) was born the first son of Tokuda Yasokichi II who had been adopted as a teenager into the Tokuda family. Masahiko graduated from the Kanazawa school of arts, and took up apprenticeship under his grandfather and father Yasokichi I & II. Well versed in orthodox Kutani design, he broke with tradition developing his own unique style titled Saiyu in the 1970s. By broadening his spectrum with this new style of Kutani ware he garnered considerable attention. In 1986, he was named a Bearer of Important Intangible Cultural Assets by Ishikawa Prefecture (local version of Living National Treasure) and a decade later was designated Living National Treasure in 1997 for his supremacy in the use of Kutani glazes. Yasokichi III, His works are held by the Polk Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, The British Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Smithsonian, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and Kanazawa Contemporary Museum of Art among many others.
