Flask with Maple Glaze, 1993

Katō Toyohisa
Flask with Maple Glaze, 1993
Stoneware
Size 14 x 17 x 15 in. (36 x 43 x 38 cm)
T-4819

A rounded ceramic flask with a broad shoulder and low, narrow mouth, finished in a range of gradated glazes ranging from rich ruby red to eggshell blue, the base with an artist’s mark

Comes with a wood tomobako storage box, the lid inscribed outside Momijiyū henko Toyohisa (Flask with maple glaze, Toyohisa) and sealed Toyohisa ; inscribed inside Dai 37kai Mino Tōgeiten Chūnichishō jushō sakuhin (Work awarded the Chūnichi [Newspaper] Prize at the 37th Mino Ceramic Exhibition). This took place in 1993.

Born into a family manufacturing Western-style tableware, Katō studied at the Gifu Prefectural Ceramics Research Institute, a facility that has nurtured many of Japan’s leading contemporary ceramic artists. While working as a member of the family production team, he started his own creative practice and first received an exhibition award in 1983. The present work is a masterpiece from the early years of Katō’s mature period, combining an artfully potted variant of the time-honored henko flask shape with a subtly gradated glaze of his own devising.