Japanese Fine Friends For Tea, Tea Bowl, Hand-Built and Hand Glazed

Japan, a beautifully handmade and hand carved black lacquer colored antique shop sign -kanban- for a Japanese currency exchange shop. The kanji translates to "currency exchange". Many antique Japanese shop signs...

From our recent Japanese Acquisition Travels- a big and lovely big 13 inch diameter hand painted bowl from Japan. Japan hard to find early hand painted ceramic lush "garden scene" serving bowl, circa 1910. Inside painting depicts elite individual with his attendants seated amidst a three some of cranes, plush patterns, foliage and seas. The exterior a dragon style...

Japan an important Art Deco period hand carved and hand painted wooden panel in its original frame by midcentury master sculptor Koga Tadao (Meiji 36 (1903)...

A lovely antique pair (2) Japanese hand-painted six-panel folding screens byobu- each conceived in an attractive birds, trees, and blue waters motif. Likely given as a wedding gift...

1262 Japanese gilt wood panel deer at the base of mount Fuji.

Old Siamese hand-carved teak panel of a temple goddess and her admirer or consort, with finely detailed background.

This set of four, Chinese carved window screens is from an 19th century house from the Shanxi province of China. Carved from Chinese Northern Elm...

Three Friends of Winter Nakajima Raisho (1796-1871) Late Edo period, circa 1850 Ink and gold leaf on paper. This is a double-sided Japanese Furosaki or tea-ceremony screen from the mid 19th century; bamboo and plum on the front, young pines the back. It by Nakajima Raisho, a master painter of the Maruyama school in the late Edo and early Meiji periods. In this work Raisho combines exquisite ink brushwork with large open spaces of brilliant gold-leaf to inspire the viewers imagination. Rather than naturalism, he is searching for the phycological impression of the motifs, resulting in abstraction and stylization. His simplification of the motifs the result of looking to capture the inner nature of the objects. This art motif is known as Sho Chiku Bai, or the Three Friends of Winter. Evergreen pine connotes steadfastness, bamboo suggests both strength and flexibility, while plum blossoms unfurling on snow-laden branches imply hardiness. Combined, this trio is emblematic of Japanese new year. Chinese literati were the first to group the three plants together due to their noble characteristics. Like these resilient plants flowering so beautifully in winter, it was expected of the scholar-gentleman to cultivate a strong character with which he would be able to show the same degree of perseverance and steadfastness even during times of adverse conditions. The screen would have been placed near the hearth of a room used for the Japanese tea ceremony, shielding the fire from draughts and also forming a stimulating and decorative backdrop behind the tea utensils. It would have been used in the Hatsugama, or first tea-ceremony of the new year. Nakajima Raisho (1796-1871) originally studied under Watanabe Nangaku before entering the school of Maruyama Ozui. He was the highest ranking Maruyama school painter at the end of the Edo period and was known as one of the ‘Four Heian Families’ along with Kishi...