Cup thumbnail 1
Cup thumbnail 2
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 142, The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Gallery

Cup

ca. 1977 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919-2007) was the leading disciple and student of Hamada Shoji (1894-1978), whom he succeeded as the pre-eminent potter of Mashiko, the ceramic-producing town northeast of Tokyo which Hamada made his home in 1924 on his return from having helped Bernard Leach (1887-1979) establish the Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall. Shimaoka, like Hamada before him, was well known outside Japan as well as within, and in 1996 was appointed a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government.

The hallmark of Shimaoka's work was his use of rope-impressed patterning. While this was partly a result of his father having been a rope-maker, it was more to do with the fact that the area of Japan in which Mashiko is situated is home to numerous prehistoric sites once occupied by the Jomon (lit. 'cord pattern') people, whose name is derived from the rich variety of earthenwares decorated with rope-impressed patterns that was a key characteristic of their culture.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Stoneware, thrown, with slip-filled, rope-impressed decoration under a clear glaze
Brief description
Cup for sake, stoneware, made by Shimaoka Tatsuzo in Mashiko, Japan, ca. 1977.
Physical description
Cup with rounded sides, everted mouthrim and turned footring; clear glaze over a whorl of white slip on the interior and a dotted pattern on the exterior achieved by pressing the still soft clay with a length of rope wound around a wooden stick and filling the resulting impressions by brushing on white slip and then, once it has hardened, scraping it away so that the slip shows white against the darker colour of the clay body
Dimensions
  • Height: 4.7cm
  • Width: 8.0cm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
Incised mark above foot
Credit line
Given by the artist
Object history
Given by the maker through Keramik Vertrieb Gmbh, Alsterdorfer Str. 300, 2000 HAMBURG 60.
Summary
Shimaoka Tatsuzo (1919-2007) was the leading disciple and student of Hamada Shoji (1894-1978), whom he succeeded as the pre-eminent potter of Mashiko, the ceramic-producing town northeast of Tokyo which Hamada made his home in 1924 on his return from having helped Bernard Leach (1887-1979) establish the Leach Pottery in St Ives, Cornwall. Shimaoka, like Hamada before him, was well known outside Japan as well as within, and in 1996 was appointed a Living National Treasure by the Japanese government.

The hallmark of Shimaoka's work was his use of rope-impressed patterning. While this was partly a result of his father having been a rope-maker, it was more to do with the fact that the area of Japan in which Mashiko is situated is home to numerous prehistoric sites once occupied by the Jomon (lit. 'cord pattern') people, whose name is derived from the rich variety of earthenwares decorated with rope-impressed patterns that was a key characteristic of their culture.
Bibliographic reference
Biographical reference: 'Japanese Ceramics Today', V & A (1983), p.128: Gisela Jahn and Anette Petersen-Brandhorst, 'Erde und Feuer', Deutsches Museum (munich, 1984), pp.229 - 231
Collection
Accession number
FE.3-1978

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Record createdFebruary 12, 2000
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