{"title":"Japanese Art","description":"\u003cp\u003eHokusai's wave and Red Fuji, Sharaku's kabuki actor, a netsuke hare and Karl Walser's Japan: Japanese art on fine porcelain.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"netsuke-hare-amber-eyes-mug","title":"Netsuke: Hare with Amber Eyes, Edo Period – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eHare with Amber Eyes, Edo Period\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc, inv. 10.211.10\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eOpen Access, public domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA hare carved in ivory, small enough to close a hand around. Netsuke are Japanese toggles, used to secure a medicine box or a tobacco pouch to the sash of a kimono — functional objects that became vehicles for extraordinary artistry. The hare was a common subject: a creature associated in Japanese folklore with the moon, longevity and good fortune. This one is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNetsuke were made from the seventeenth century onwards by specialist craftsmen, depicting animals, mythological figures, scenes from daily life and objects of all kinds, often with a wit and observation that belies their scale. The collection of 264 netsuke described in Edmund de Waal's memoir \u003cem\u003eThe Hare with Amber Eyes\u003c\/em\u003e (2010) followed the dispersal and reassembly of a family collection through five generations across Paris, Vienna and Tokyo — the netsuke surviving wars, displacement and loss as the larger world around them shifted beyond recognition. De Waal inherited the collection from his great-uncle Iggie, and the book that resulted is both a history of objects and a meditation on what it means for beautiful things to persist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNetsuke of a Rabbit\u003c\/em\u003e, Japan, Edo or Meiji period, 19th century. Ivory. Gift of Mrs. Russell Sage, 1910. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 10.211.10. Open Access, public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":57724211822923,"sku":"da114ddc-de5a-4cc8-8480-c9b609f0ae6f","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/Netsuke_Mug_front.jpg?v=1786980428"},{"product_id":"hokusai-the-great-wave-off-kanagawa-art-mug","title":"Katsushika Hokusai: The Great Wave off Kanagawa, c. 1831 – Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eKatsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eUnder the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji\u003c\/em\u003e, ca. 1830-32\u003cbr\u003eWoodblock print, ink and colour on paper; published by Nishimuraya Yohachi, TO VERIFY\u003cbr\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, inv. JP1847\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eOpen Access, public domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eThree boats are caught under the wave. They are oshiokuri-bune, the fast rowing barges that ran live fish from the Izu and Bōsō peninsulas into the markets of Edo, and the men in them have stopped rowing: they lie flat along the hulls with their hands on the gunwales. Thirty men are in the boats; twenty-two of them are drawn. Above them the crest is breaking into claws. Behind, low in the trough, sits Mount Fuji, snow on its cone, small enough to be taken for another wave.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe blue is why the sheet looks the way it does. Prussian blue came in from Holland and reached Japan in quantity in 1829; within two years the Edo print trade had reorganised itself around it. It held its depth across a flat printed area, and it did not fade the way indigo faded. Hokusai used both here, the imported pigment against the old one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was seventy-one. The box at the upper left carries the series title, and beside it the signature: Hokusai aratame Iitsu hitsu — from the brush of Hokusai, who has changed his name to Iitsu. He used more than thirty names in his life and rarely began a new body of work without taking another. This is the first sheet of Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi. It sold well enough that ten more were added and the thirty-six became forty-six.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSomething like eight thousand impressions came off the blocks over the years, and the blocks wore down as they went; of the first edition, 113 sheets are known to survive. The one printed here is the Metropolitan Museum's, from the Havemeyer collection, left to the museum in 1929 — the key block still sharp in the foam, the gradation in the sky unbroken, the paper light.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mug carries the sheet whole, edge to edge: the cartouche and the signature at the left, all three boats, the claws of the crest, and Fuji in the gap. Nothing is cropped away.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows four details from the sheet: the title cartouche with the signature, the crest breaking, a boat under the wave, and Mount Fuji in the trough.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/hokusai-red-fuji-porcelain-art-mug\"\u003eRed Fuji, c. 1831\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKatsushika Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, ca. 1830–32. Woodblock print, ink and colour on paper, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929 (JP1847). Open Access, public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58235138900299,"sku":"90c3fab0-2920-4be2-9e8b-ba8b71b6b4ee","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/GreatWave_Mug_1_front_3000_a766dc74-0522-432b-bcba-baf027753521.jpg?v=1787515646"},{"product_id":"hokusai-red-fuji-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Katsushika Hokusai: Red Fuji, c. 1831 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:0.9em 0;margin:0 0 1.4em;\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.72em;letter-spacing:0.16em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"line-height:1.55;\"\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eKatsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cem\u003eSouth Wind, Clear Sky (Gaifu kaisei), known as Red Fuji, from Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji\u003c\/em\u003e, ca. 1830-32\u003cbr\u003eWoodblock print, ink and colour on paper, 24.4 x 35.6 cm\u003cbr\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1914, inv. JP9\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:0.8em;opacity:0.7;margin-top:0.6em;\"\u003eOpen Access, public domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mountain fills the sheet from edge to edge and almost nothing else happens. A red cone against a blue sky, a band of cloud lying flat across the middle, a dark forest at the foot. No people, no boats, no road. The snow is bare paper: the white gullies running down the cone are the places where no block touched the sheet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Japanese title is Gaifū kaisei — south wind, clear sky. It names a condition, not a place. On a few mornings in late summer and early autumn, with the wind from the south and the air clear, Fuji turns red in the first light. The print is the record of a weather event that lasts a matter of minutes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt belongs to Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the series that also produced the Great Wave. The two are usually named in the same breath — the loudest sheet in the set and the quietest — and both were printed with the same imported Prussian blue, which had reached Japan in quantity only a year or two before.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe impression printed here came to the Metropolitan Museum in 1914. The sheet is clean and the paper light, and the sky runs unbroken from deep blue at the top to pale at the horizon. That gradation is not a separate block: the printer wiped the colour across the block by hand, once for every single sheet, which is why no two impressions of this print are quite the same.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mug carries the sheet whole, cropped just inside the paper margin, at the proportions of the original — 24.4 by 35.6 centimetres.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe fourth product image shows four details from the sheet: the title cartouche with the signature, the summit with the snow left in the gullies, the banded cloud, and the line where the forest meets the red of the cone.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-material\"\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp class=\"tz-series\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrom the same series:\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003ca href=\"\/products\/hokusai-the-great-wave-off-kanagawa-art-mug\"\u003eThe Great Wave off Kanagawa, c. 1831\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKatsushika Hokusai, South Wind, Clear Sky (Gaifū kaisei), also known as Red Fuji, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, ca. 1830–32. Woodblock print, ink and colour on paper, 24.4 × 35.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1914 (JP9). Open Access, public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Fine Porcelain — 10 oz","offer_id":58236379889995,"sku":"b388ef3f-5cba-4101-95f2-18e3f9fa4d9b","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/RedFuji_Mug_1_front_3000_c6d6c64d-652a-438f-8fd8-12ed55741e0e.jpg?v=1787550479"},{"product_id":"karl-walser-kokyu-player-1908","title":"Karl Walser: Japanese Musician with Kokyū, 1908 — Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:12px 0;margin:0 0 16px;line-height:1.55\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"letter-spacing:.14em;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:.78em;margin-bottom:8px\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eKarl Walser\u003c\/strong\u003e (1877-1943)\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eJapanese Musician with Kokyu\u003c\/em\u003e, 1908\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv lang=\"ja\"\u003eカール・ヴァルザー（1877–1943）／胡弓を弾く女性、1908年\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eWatercolour over pencil, reproduced in collotype\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eSigned and dated lower right: karl walser 1908\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eFrom Bernhard Kellermann, \u003cem\u003eSassa yo Yassa. Japanische Taenze\u003c\/em\u003e, Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1920\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:.85em;margin-top:8px\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA woman kneels with the kokyu, the small bowed instrument of the Japanese stage, held upright on her knee. Karl Walser drew the pose in pencil and let the colour fall in afterwards, in patches that never quite fill the outline - which is why the kimono still moves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe was in Japan for half a year in 1908, in Yokohama, Tokyo, Kyoto, Ise and Miyazu, and filled sketchbooks with dancers and musicians, watching them from the floor of the room rather than from a seat in a theatre.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWalser is being rediscovered in Japan right now: a retrospective of some 150 works opened at the Tokyo Station Gallery in April 2026 and runs at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, until 27 September 2026.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz - 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKarl Walser (1877-1943), Japanese Musician with Kokyu, 1908. Collotype plate from Bernhard Kellermann, Sassa yo Yassa. Japanische Taenze, Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1920. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58432726499659,"sku":"731401a8-880f-4393-bf6b-2391ad210a1f","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/024abc68-a336-4851-88bb-70517c498239.webp?v=1789019237"},{"product_id":"toshusai-sharaku-kabuki-actor-ichikawa-omezo-i-detail-1794-porcelain-art-mug","title":"Tōshūsai Sharaku: Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Omezō I (Detail), 1794 – Porcelain Art Mug","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"tz-label\" style=\"border-top:1px solid currentColor;border-bottom:1px solid currentColor;padding:12px 0;margin:0 0 16px;line-height:1.55\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"letter-spacing:.14em;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:.78em;margin-bottom:8px\"\u003eThe work on this mug\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTōshūsai Sharaku\u003c\/strong\u003e (active 1794–95)\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cem\u003eThe Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Omezō I as the Footman Ippei\u003c\/em\u003e, 1794\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv lang=\"ja\"\u003e東洲斎写楽　初代市川男女蔵の奴一平、1794年\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eColour woodblock print with mica ground, 37.8 × 25.1 cm — detail\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv\u003eThe Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1914, JP196\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"font-size:.85em;margin-top:8px\"\u003ePublic domain\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eA kabuki actor at the moment of the scowl: brows drawn hard, eyes cut to one side, mouth pulled down. Sharaku was active for less than a year, in 1794 and 1795, and his half-length portraits of actors on dark mica grounds are counted among the high points of the Japanese woodblock print.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe mug carries a band across the middle of the sheet — the face, the swept-back hair, and on the left Sharaku's signature and the seals below it — taken from the Metropolitan Museum's impression, where the violet-grey ground and the skin tones have kept their colour.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFine porcelain, 10 oz - 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTōshūsai Sharaku, \u003cem\u003eThe Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Omezō I as the Footman Ippei\u003c\/em\u003e, 1794; colour woodblock print with mica ground, 37.8 × 25.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1914, JP196. Detail. Public domain.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSelected by Dr. Walther Fuchs\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tazzarte","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":58532356096331,"sku":"f7b5d11d-7fc8-4a57-b46a-857f8496e9b2","price":34.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0816\/8475\/8859\/files\/8129a1ee-fb8e-4609-8908-ef563d0fbb8b.webp?v=1789849668"}],"url":"https:\/\/tazzarte.com\/collections\/japanese-art.oembed","provider":"Tazzarte","version":"1.0","type":"link"}