ID for some of my pots

Some Japanese pots recently found their way into my garden, and - not that it is very important - but as the new owner it is always interesting to know who made these pots. I checked some sites with hanko recognition, but without result. Maybe some of you out there can recognize some of these signatures...







Would appreciate your help!

1- Shibakatsu (turn the picture one click clockwise)
2- similar to Shouzan (upside down)
3- Yamafusa

Please pots pics of the whole pots!

Many thanks Russel !

After checking again with http://www.tokoname.or.jp/bonsai/catalog/maker-e.htm , it seems to be a correct answer to me. Problem when checking hanko with these kind of websites, is that I am always confused about how to recognize the bottom of the signature??? Maybe there is a way to find out what the bottom of a signature is?

You can see the Yamafusa pot here. I will make some pictures of the other pots soon...

Hi Hans.

We talked about this in another post here - I don't know how to tell you how to know what's top and what's bottom! Sometimes it can be really tricky.

The Yamafusa pot is wonderful, and so is the Stewartia! He is famous for his glazes. Can't wait to see the others.

R

As promised a picture of the pots...

1st pot (Shibakatsu pot)



2nd pot (Shouzan pot. Is this Ikkou - Mr.WATANABE Kazuhiro?)






I also have another soft yellow Japanese Tokoname shohin pot with no signature on the bottom of the pot, but inside there are some writings which are the signature according to me. I realize the signature has become a bit blurry over the years, but maybe someone recognizes this one too?

The second Hanko isn't Shouzan, either Akira Shouzan or Shouzan Kaneshou, nor Ikkou. It's upside down, and I think it's Tosui.

Thanks, Ryan. That gives me something to work towards. Shouzan was just the closest thing I could come up with while I'm supposed to be working on taxes.

Here's one of my Tosui pics, oriented like Hans'. Close, but still not the same.

Ha ha. I too am reading forums while I'm supposed to be doing taxes.
There's only one way to know the orientation of a Hanko. Character recognition. There are some characters that are common to Hanko, "yama-" "-zan" "shou-" "tou-" "-en" learning those characters you can orient the most common Hanko and Rakkan. The easiest way is to just study those characters on the Bonsaiplaza and Tokoname sites, after a while ID becomes second nature.

Tosui, the more common one, uses no less than 5 or 6 different Hanko that I'm aware of. Complicating matters, there are ate least 3 different potters named Tosui that I'm aware of!
I'll post some other different Tosui Hanko later. Not sure if that's the common Tosui, but it is a Tosui, the first two characters say "Tosui"

Yep, those are good pointers.

Maybe the age of the pot has something to do with it? The previous owner told me he had this pot (with the second signature) for at least 25 years. I can imagine a signature can change a little bit over the years in a carreer of a potter.

Ryan,

Would it be possible to post these common characters you were talking about? I think this could be very interesting...

Sure Hans, I'll run through my Hanko DBase and circle a couple common examples of characters. I recognize them most easily pictorially, through association.
Russell, the second Hanko posted by Hans and the Hanko you posted are undoubtedly the same potter. While they are different stamps, those are the same 4 characters in both.
I think it says, "Tosui Seto made".
This is exactly one of the things that makes pot ID difficult sometimes. Hanko are very stylized renditions of Kanji characters. Like a doctors signature on a prescription, this makes some of them difficult to read for even Japanese.
Interesting story, take the example of "Ikkou," Watanabe Kazuhiro, mentioned earlier, one of my favorite potters. His original Hanko, when first starting out, reads "Kazuhiro" but a famous Japanese pot dealer misread the Hanko, as "Ikkou."
The name "Ikkou" became more famous and associated with his pots than his actual name, so he changed his Hanko, now it actually says "Ikkou"!

I asked a friend from Japan about the second Hanko, and he confirmed this is a pot by Tosui. And as Ryan B said made in Seto, one of the 6 old pottery areas...

Anybody an idea about the smaller shohin pot?

That's great. Glad you got a confirmation. Nothing like my other Tosui's, so I'll add it to them. You should show that shohin pot to your Japanese friend too.

Russell Coker wrote:You should show that shohin pot to your Japanese friend too.

I already did that. Will let you know when he knows more about it...

Both the clay and the glaze on that shohin pot look like Youzans. However, I can't imagine a Tokoname potter not signing his work. I think that the writing on the inside, which was done with marker, I think, could probably give you a clue where its from. Looks like a description and price to me.

Quite a number of signiture or seal under the pot are written in ancient chinese text, not even many chinese who know how to read chinese can read them.

A few more tokoname pots came into my collection, without knowing the maker. Maybe someone can help identifying these 3 hanko? (Hope they are not upside down again, but porbably they are...)







Thanks for any help,

Hans

Some more pots who need an ID:

This one has no Hanko, but it is Japanese. I don't think many potters used these figures on their pots, but not sure of it...



Not sure of the origin of this one: could be not Japanese. Written in black marker: 10-5-84 (date) VV and BT?



Last one is from Seika-En...



Close-up:



Thanks for any tips about the makers of these pots!

[quote="Hans Vleugels"]Some more pots who need an ID:

This one has no Hanko, but it is Japanese. I don't think many potters used these figures on their pots, but not sure of it...



Hi Hans

I dont know who made the pot. but the figures is two Kappa. They are japanse mythfigures. They live in streams, and are friends with friends fish and frogs...they like to tease people who is out for a swim, or just walking in the water, with pulling their legs, people gets scared, and think they will drown.
Kappa must go to the shore, if he want to eat...only cucombers. If the disc on the top of their heads dry up, will Kappa die.

Kind regards Yvonne

Hi Hans,
Away we go, off the cuff, I can identify all these pots but the kappa pot.
1. Chinese, newer
2. Yamafusa
3. Hattori Tomoyuki
4. Jiuemon(sp?)
5. Seiko(very inexpensive but very nice for the price in Japan)
I think all these chops but the Chinese one are up on the site, I'll have to check. You can compare the images with my IDs and check my off the cuff diagnosis.
Ryan
http://japanesebonsaipots.net/

Hi Ryan,

Seems you are right about the Japanese pots. Was having my doubts about the Yamafusa pot, because most hanko show 3 different signs and mine had only 2, but now i see the the resemblance. The Hattori hanko was also slightly different, and I didn't recognize it as the same. The same with the Jiuemon pot, this is not a very clear pic in your database. The Seiko hanko is completely different as the one on your blog, but I remember the name now. It wasn't from Seika-En, I mixed this name with Seiko...

Would it be any help to add these hanko to your database for easier recognition? Anyway, a big thank you for helping me out with these ones...

If anyone knows more about the kappa pot, or the Chinese one...

Best regards,
Hans

H Hans,
Actually, this Seiko is different from the one I have on the chops page, totally different Seiko. The one I have up is a different potter. Sure, id like to add the Jiuemon, the chop on my pot is only a couple hundred millimeters, so it was very hard to get a good shot with my crappy camera! As to that 3rd character you see in some signed pots, like the Hattori and Yamafusa that appear on my blog, it's "Zo" which just means "made". So your sig says "Yamafusa" as opposed to "Yamafusa Zo". Same with the Hattori which will often have 3 characters.

You can see a few other pots by this Seiko and check out the stamp here:
http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/boroku/c0c4b9e1.html
Ryan
http://japanesebonsaipots.net/