Basket for Transporting Sencha Tea-Ceremony Utensils (Chakago or Teiran)
Hayakawa Shōkosai I Japanese
Hayakawa Shōkosai I appears to have been the first craftsman of baskets to sign his compositions, partly to indicate that his Chinese-style (karamono) pieces had actually been made by a Japanese master. Shōkosai’s works were largely utensils for use in the period’s thriving culture around sencha. In 1877, one of his lidded baskets—intended, like the example on view, for transporting a tea set—received the Phoenix Prize at the First Domestic Industrial Exposition.
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