Yohen Tenmoku Tea Bowl

Forty-Three Years from Important Cultural Property to National Treasure

Yohen Tenmoku Tea Bowl (曜変天目茶碗, Yohen Tenmoku Chawan) is a tea bowl owned by Ryukoin in Kyoto Prefecture, designated a National Treasure on 9 June 1951 after becoming an Important Cultural Property on 23 April 1908.

Forty-three years separate the two. The Taima Mandara Engi became an Important Cultural Property on that same day in 1908, and the two went on to National Treasure in different years, 1951 and 1955.

No individual record for this bowl could be confirmed through Cultural Heritage Online or the national database. This article is built from the values in the database and from records for comparable properties, and gives neither quantity nor dimensions.

A Work of the Same Name under Yet Another System

This is not the only property called Yohen Tenmoku.

The Nezu Museum holds one, from the Jian kilns in China, of the Southern Song period, a single bowl, 6.7 centimetres high, 11.8 centimetres across the mouth and 3.9 centimetres across the foot.

That bowl is neither a National Treasure nor an Important Cultural Property. Its category is Important Art Object.

Around the Jittoku painting a registered art object appeared. An Important Art Object differs from that again. Works on one subject stand under three separate systems.

With the images of Fudo Myoo the difference lay in the listing authority, state, prefecture or city; with the Jittoku painting, between designation and registration. Here a third category joins them.

Perhaps It Should Be Classed as Oil-Spot

One sentence in the Nezu Museum's record repays attention.

An inscription in gold on the lid of the inner box, written by Kobori Enshu, gives the name Yohen, but there is a view that the bowl should rather be classed as oil-spot ware.

The box says Yohen, and that is where the name comes from. Yet the record sets beside it the view that the classification should be different.

The name may not match the thing. Titles have shown an artist unrecorded, as with the screens of pines and flowering plants, or a loss written in, as with the Gobu Shinkan scroll. A title itself being doubted is new.

This belongs to the Nezu Museum's record, not to any record of the Ryukoin bowl. The two must not be confused.

Tenmoku Bowls Share Their Measurements

Set the dimensions side by side and something appears.

The Nezu Yohen Tenmoku is 6.7 centimetres high and 11.8 centimetres across the mouth. The Taihi Tenmoku bowl is 6.7 centimetres high and 11.8 centimetres across the mouth.

Height and mouth agree. What differs is the foot: 3.9 centimetres on one, 3.5 centimetres on the other.

The form called tenmoku is standard in its measurements as well. The Agency described the Taihi bowl as having the rim slightly turned back and the foot low and small, in the tenmoku manner.

The Nezu record is precise about the glaze too: on one side, inside and out, large mottling appears with a lustre and iridescence like mother-of-pearl, while on the other fine oil-spot markings cover the surface. Within one bowl the effect differs from face to face.

Seeing It

Ryukoin, in Kyoto Prefecture, owns the bowl. It is a temple holding, not kept on permanent display.

Ceramics are less vulnerable to light than paintings or documents, but occasions for showing rest with the owner.

Accounts elsewhere say that only three such bowls survive in the world. No record of surviving numbers could be confirmed in the Agency's material, and this article does not make that claim.

Exhibition plans can change, so check before travelling.