六斎 Rokusai — 京焼 - Cup - Stoneware - Cup 1 Pair Red & Indigo

Item Description
六斎 Rokusai — 京焼 染赤雷紋 ぐい吞 ペア / Kyo-yaki "Som-aka Raimon" Sake Cup 1 Pair — Red & Indigo Paired Set, Heian Rokusai

This exceptional pair of guinomi (sake cups) is a signed work of Rokusai (六斎), a Kyoto ceramicist working in the prestigious Kyo-yaki (京焼 — Kyoto ware) tradition.
The pair comes with its original artist's wooden box (tomobako), inscribed: 京焼　染赤雷紋　ぐい吞　平安　六斎　造 — Kyo-yaki, Som-aka Raimon pattern, sake cups, made by Rokusai of Heian (Kyoto).
The two cups are conceived as a complementary pair — a hi-iro (緋色/赤 — fired red) exterior and an ai-iro (藍色 — indigo-blue) exterior — united by the same design programme and the same interior glaze treatment. The exterior of each cup is entirely covered in a densely worked all-over pattern of nested diamond and square forms, each outlined with multiple closely spaced parallel lines in the raimon (雷紋 — thunder pattern) tradition.
This ancient decorative vocabulary — known across East Asian ceramics and textiles — is here applied with extraordinary dedication and precision: the entire surface of each cup, from lip to foot, is filled without gap or repetition with hundreds of individually brushed diamond-form spirals, each differing slightly from its neighbours in the organic way of hand-painting, giving the design an almost hypnotic, textile-like depth.
What is particularly striking is the difference in mood between the two cups.
The red (aka) cup — painted in warm iron-red with white lines — has an energetic, fiery quality, while the indigo (ai) cup — painted in rich cobalt-blue with white — is cooler and more austere.
Yet both share the same interior treatment: a deep, lustrous midnight-blue glaze that covers the inner walls completely, pooling and shifting at the base into a dark indigo ground. When the cups are held upright and a single light source is present, the interior becomes a glowing, jewel-like darkness — an extraordinary contrast to the intricate patterned exterior.
The forms themselves have a refined irregularity: the walls are not perfectly cylindrical but slightly faceted, the rims not perfectly even — the quiet evidence of hand-forming and a discriminating eye for yohen (窯変 — kiln transformation).
The foot rings are glazed white, each bearing the seal Rokusai (六斎) in underglaze blue in the centre of the base.

Size (per cup)
Height: 4.8 cm
Body diameter: 6.2 cm

Weight (per cup)
Approx. 50 g

Condition
Both cups are in excellent condition, with no chips, cracks or repairs.
The wooden box is in good condition.
Please refer to the photographs for full detail.

Artist Profile
Rokusai (六斎) is the studio name of a ceramicist working in the Kyo-yaki (京焼 / 京焼・清水焼) tradition of Kyoto — Japan's most historically refined ceramic centre, designated as a National Traditional Craft Industry. The studio name Heian Rokusai (平安六斎) identifies the artist as a Kyoto-based maker: Heian (平安) being the ancient name for Kyoto, used as a mark of pride in the city's cultural heritage.
Kyo-yaki is celebrated above all for the virtuosity of its painted decoration (iroezuke and sometsuke traditions), the refinement of its forms, and the depth of its artistic intention.
The raimon (雷紋) pattern — ancient geometric thunder-scroll motif — belongs to a decorative vocabulary shared across East Asian arts, here applied in a bold two-colour pairing that is at once deeply traditional and strikingly graphic.

NOITICE:

The photos may show flowers, plants, pedestals, etc. as examples of decorations and interior design for illustrative purposes, but please note that these are not included in the product.

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