Large Meiji Satsuma Chatsubo Jar with Nikko Toshogu Scenes and Tokugawa Crests

East Asia, Japan, Meiji period. A Satsuma earthenware chatsubo, or tea-leaf storage jar, dressed for presentation in a moulded brocade cover gathered with knotted cords and heavy tassels. The conceit recalls the ceremony with which prized tea jars were displayed and gifted. Gilding of roughly 70 percent gold lights the cover, where Tokugawa triple-hollyhock roundels (mitsuba aoi) drift among cranes and chrysanthemums on a dense black and gilt scroll ground. Below, the finely crackled ivory glaze opens onto a continuous panorama of Nikko Toshogu, the mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Cryptomeria groves, vermilion halls, and the carved Yomeimon gate unfold around the shoulder, along with a bridge over a rushing river, very likely the Shinkyo spanning the Daiya. The base carries a gilt Shimazu mon and the two-character mark Satsu-yaki within a gilt-bordered reserve. The Toshogu at Nikko was built as the shrine-mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the shogunate, and was rebuilt in its lavish present form under his grandson Iemitsu in the 1630s. The Yomeimon, so densely carved that it is nicknamed the "sunset gate" (because a visitor could gaze at it until dusk), is its most celebrated building. The brocade-wrapped form carries its own Tokugawa reference. Each year the shogunate held the Ochatsubo Dochu, a stately procession that carried jars of the season's first tea from Uji to Edo, and important tea jars were traditionally presented in silk covers tied with cords. The base adds a sly twist. Meiji Satsuma commonly bore the Shimazu cross-in-circle as a mark of the ware, and the Shimazu daimyo of Satsuma were among the clans whose alliance brought down the Tokugawa in 1868. Here the crest of the victors sits quietly underfoot, while the lid is crowned with the hollyhocks of the house they helped unseat. Item # 205567

Estimate:$725

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