Sohei Takashima(高島聡平, b. 1991) - Cup - Ceramic - Bizen Sake Cup
06
days
01
hour
55
minutes
16
seconds
No bids placed
Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment’s safe with us until you receive your object.View details
Trustpilot 4.4 | 145414 reviews
Rated Excellent on Trustpilot.
Bizen stoneware sake cup by Sohei Takashima, made in Japan, measuring 6 cm high and 5.3 cm wide and deep, in excellent condition, with a signed wooden box.
AI-assisted summary
Description from the seller
Title:
Bizen Guinomi Sake Cup by Takashima Sohei — Trained Seven Years Under Living National Treasure Isezaki Jun — Signed Wooden Box
Description:
A Bizen stoneware sake cup by Takashima Sohei (高島聡平, b. 1991), who trained for seven years under Isezaki Jun — the fifth Living National Treasure of Bizen ware.
The artist
Takashima was born in Kushiro, Hokkaido — about as far from the Bizen kilns as Japan allows. He encountered ceramics at university in Sapporo, was first drawn to yuteki tenmoku glazes, and then moved toward Bizen for the opposite reason: it is the more elemental material, worked without glaze at all.
On graduating from Dōto University’s design faculty in 2014 he went directly to Okayama and was accepted as a pupil of Isezaki Jun, designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property for Bizen ware. He stayed seven years, taking competition selections throughout his apprenticeship, then established his own workshop in Ushimado, Setouchi City.
Okayama Prefectural Art Exhibition — selected 2016, 2018, 2019; Encouragement Prize 2017
Tabe Museum Forms of Tea Exhibition — selected 2017, 2020, 2021
5th Tōbi Exhibition, Encouragement Prize, 2018
Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Chugoku branch — selected 2018
12th Contemporary Tea Ceramics Exhibition — selected 2019; Hagi Grand Prize V, Honourable Mention
Japan Ceramic Society Contemporary Ceramic Art Encouragement Prize, Chugoku-Shikoku, 2020 and 2022
The Japan Ceramic Society prize came in the chatō — tea ceramics — category, and his solo exhibitions since have been held at Kakiden Gallery in Shinjuku, one of the established venues for contemporary Japanese ceramics.
Bizen — fired, not glazed
Bizen is one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan, made at Inbe in Okayama for over a thousand years, and it is defined by a refusal: no glaze is applied at all.
Everything on the surface of this cup was produced by fire. Pieces are packed into an anagama — a sloping tunnel kiln — and fired with pine for days on end. Ash from the burning wood settles on the pots and melts into natural glaze. Where flame flows across a surface, it scorches it. Where one pot shields another, the shielded area stays pale.
The potter controls the clay, the form, the stacking, and the fire. He does not control the result, and the same piece cannot be made twice.
This cup
The surface runs from a warm scarlet-orange across the lower body — hidasuki-family colouring, where the clay has blushed red in reduction — up through a paler band at the waist where the fire ran differently, and back to a deeper tone at the rim.
The body is marked with soft horizontal throwing rings from the wheel, left visible rather than smoothed away, and the clay carries scattered pale inclusions that stand slightly proud of the surface — feldspar in the raw Bizen clay, erupted by the heat.
A gently waisted cylinder on a small cut foot, with a lip that rises and falls very slightly around its circumference.
What Bizen does with sake
Bizen is the most sought-after material in Japan for drinking vessels, and the reason is practical rather than aesthetic. The clay is fired unglazed at very high temperature, leaving a surface that is dense but minutely porous — and that surface is widely held among Japanese drinkers to soften the edge of sake and round out its texture.
It is also the material that changes with use. An unglazed Bizen cup darkens, deepens and takes on sheen over years of handling. It is not finished when it leaves the kiln.
The maker’s own position
From Takashima’s own statement: Bizen’s beauty lies in being primal — rough surfaces, plain colour — but pursued too far, those qualities destroy usability. His stated aim is to hold the balance between the object as something to look at and something to use.
This cup is the argument in miniature. It is unmistakably Bizen to look at. It is also sized and weighted to be held.
Shipping from Japan with Tracking Number & Insurance.
I promise fast shipping via FedEx or DHL as soon as possible!
Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer’s responsibility.
These charges are normally collected by the delivering freight (shipping) company or when you pick the item up - do not confuse them for additional shipping charges.
Title:
Bizen Guinomi Sake Cup by Takashima Sohei — Trained Seven Years Under Living National Treasure Isezaki Jun — Signed Wooden Box
Description:
A Bizen stoneware sake cup by Takashima Sohei (高島聡平, b. 1991), who trained for seven years under Isezaki Jun — the fifth Living National Treasure of Bizen ware.
The artist
Takashima was born in Kushiro, Hokkaido — about as far from the Bizen kilns as Japan allows. He encountered ceramics at university in Sapporo, was first drawn to yuteki tenmoku glazes, and then moved toward Bizen for the opposite reason: it is the more elemental material, worked without glaze at all.
On graduating from Dōto University’s design faculty in 2014 he went directly to Okayama and was accepted as a pupil of Isezaki Jun, designated a Holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property for Bizen ware. He stayed seven years, taking competition selections throughout his apprenticeship, then established his own workshop in Ushimado, Setouchi City.
Okayama Prefectural Art Exhibition — selected 2016, 2018, 2019; Encouragement Prize 2017
Tabe Museum Forms of Tea Exhibition — selected 2017, 2020, 2021
5th Tōbi Exhibition, Encouragement Prize, 2018
Japan Traditional Art Crafts Exhibition, Chugoku branch — selected 2018
12th Contemporary Tea Ceramics Exhibition — selected 2019; Hagi Grand Prize V, Honourable Mention
Japan Ceramic Society Contemporary Ceramic Art Encouragement Prize, Chugoku-Shikoku, 2020 and 2022
The Japan Ceramic Society prize came in the chatō — tea ceramics — category, and his solo exhibitions since have been held at Kakiden Gallery in Shinjuku, one of the established venues for contemporary Japanese ceramics.
Bizen — fired, not glazed
Bizen is one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan, made at Inbe in Okayama for over a thousand years, and it is defined by a refusal: no glaze is applied at all.
Everything on the surface of this cup was produced by fire. Pieces are packed into an anagama — a sloping tunnel kiln — and fired with pine for days on end. Ash from the burning wood settles on the pots and melts into natural glaze. Where flame flows across a surface, it scorches it. Where one pot shields another, the shielded area stays pale.
The potter controls the clay, the form, the stacking, and the fire. He does not control the result, and the same piece cannot be made twice.
This cup
The surface runs from a warm scarlet-orange across the lower body — hidasuki-family colouring, where the clay has blushed red in reduction — up through a paler band at the waist where the fire ran differently, and back to a deeper tone at the rim.
The body is marked with soft horizontal throwing rings from the wheel, left visible rather than smoothed away, and the clay carries scattered pale inclusions that stand slightly proud of the surface — feldspar in the raw Bizen clay, erupted by the heat.
A gently waisted cylinder on a small cut foot, with a lip that rises and falls very slightly around its circumference.
What Bizen does with sake
Bizen is the most sought-after material in Japan for drinking vessels, and the reason is practical rather than aesthetic. The clay is fired unglazed at very high temperature, leaving a surface that is dense but minutely porous — and that surface is widely held among Japanese drinkers to soften the edge of sake and round out its texture.
It is also the material that changes with use. An unglazed Bizen cup darkens, deepens and takes on sheen over years of handling. It is not finished when it leaves the kiln.
The maker’s own position
From Takashima’s own statement: Bizen’s beauty lies in being primal — rough surfaces, plain colour — but pursued too far, those qualities destroy usability. His stated aim is to hold the balance between the object as something to look at and something to use.
This cup is the argument in miniature. It is unmistakably Bizen to look at. It is also sized and weighted to be held.
Shipping from Japan with Tracking Number & Insurance.
I promise fast shipping via FedEx or DHL as soon as possible!
Import duties, taxes and charges are not included in the item price or shipping charges. These charges are the buyer’s responsibility.
These charges are normally collected by the delivering freight (shipping) company or when you pick the item up - do not confuse them for additional shipping charges.
Details
Era
1900-2000
Title additional information
Bizen Sake Cup
Country of origin
Japan
Designer/artist/maker
Sohei Takashima(高島聡平, b. 1991)
Material
Ceramic
Condition
Excellent condition: barely used with minimal signs of wear
Height
6 cm
Width
5.3 cm
Depth
5.3 cm
Estimated period
1980-1990, 1990-2000
