Description
Inspired by Hiroshige’s Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido, this handpainted bonsai pot features the iconic Hashirii Teahouse of Otsu, renowned for its perpetual spring water. With delicately painted ox carts and travelers, this ceramic masterpiece captures the nostalgic charm of Edo-period travel, blending art, history, and Japanese elegance—perfect for showcasing your shohin bonsai.
Features:
- Artisan: Tosui kiln
- Design: Round, tall with white glaze and hand-painted Hiroshige scene
- Painting: Depicts “The Running Well Teahouse at Otsu” from Hiroshige’s “Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido”
- Size: Ideal for small shohin bonsai trees
- Origin: Crafted and hand-painted in Japan
Measurements:
- Outer (diameter x height): 9,0 x 6,0 cm
- Inner (diameter x height): 7,0 x 5,5 cm
About the Painting:
Tokaido is a main road connecting Tokyo and Kyoto, and it was developed during the Edo period. Before the Shinkansen, it was Japan’s most traveled route, and it was considered the nation’s main artery. Originally designed to facilitate the movement of feudal lords on their journeys to and from Edo, it became popular with ordinary travelers as well, with inns established along the route. This lively road and its 53 inns and scenes were depicted in Utagawa Hiroshige’s Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido, a series of ukiyo-e prints featuring striking color contrasts and humorous depictions of people.
This ceramic bonsai pot features the Hashirii Teahouse of Otsu, named after “Hashirii,” which refers to fresh, flowing spring water. This area has been known since the Heian period (794-1185) and is renowned for its abundant, pure spring, which never runs dry. The scene shows the iconic spring flowing from the roof of the teahouse, just as in Hiroshige’s prints.
Made with this water, Hashirii mochi was a popular gift for travelers; those on the road much appreciated its long shelf life. Around 1772–1780, Swedish physician and botanist Carl Peter Thunberg (Pinus thunbergii, Japanese Black Pine, Kuromatsu is named in honor of Thunberg), who accompanied Dutch merchants to Edo, recorded in his travel journal, “Every small teahouse offers small white or green sweets made of rice flour. Travelers and porters buy these and enjoy them with tea, which is always readily available.”
The road here was lined with ox carts loaded with rice bales or firewood, and the mountain pass at Oisaka, where Hashirii Teahouse stood, was known for its perpetual springwater that made the road muddy and made ox-cart transport quite a challenge.
This small ceramic piece’s delicately painted ox carts and travelers capture the warmth of the journey. With its quaint, nostalgic charm, this bonsai pot inspired by Hiroshige’s vision of Japanese travel will not only hold your shohin bonsai but also add a new dimension of beauty with Japanese charm to it.
About the Kiln:
The pot’s creator, Tōsui (Tsugao Mizuno), is the current generation of Tōsui, a lineage that has produced many masterpieces from the pre-war to the post-war period. The earlier Tōsui pots were mostly glazed, with paintings by Asai Chazan (Shinano Chazan). Tsugao Mizuno studied ceramic painting under Chazan and trained in pot-making under his father, Ryokujian Tōsui. As an artist who inherited both Tōsui’s pot-making techniques and Chazan’s painting style, he introduced Tōsui painted pots to the world. His distinctive paintings, rich in character, feature landscapes, figures, and birds and flowers based on the Southern School of Chinese painting, as well as series like The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō, Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, Four Seasons Landscapes, as well as various pots for bonsai, colored pots, and medium-sized pots, showcasing his versatile talent and prolific output. Due to the limited production of Tōsui painted pots, their popularity has been increasing in recent years.
