Japanese Armor Society Forum

the tea-ceremony, chanoyu, flourished during the Momoyama period.
Here a nice statue of Sen no Rikyu, the famous tea-master who was forced to suicide by Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

Great Luc - I see you were successful!

Brigitte likes it, so I have all my points this time
And the story of Sen no Rikyu is very interesting, even from the point of view of the bushido-culture.

It's a beautiful work of art. And Sen no Rikyu is indeed a fascinating subject.

Nice!
What`s the size?

About 50cm

Wow, a proper appearance for the tea room ....

Luc,
Teriffic example of a kanshitsu figure, I know that this dry lacquer technique allows the artist amazing subtlety with details such as stubble, hair and skin texture. Does your figure of Rikyū have any of these features and does he have glass eyes? I have worked on a number of these over the years, all the Japanese examples dated to the Momoyama and Edo and were of deities for use in shrines. Another interesting feature that most of these religious figures shared was a compartment either in the base or in the back that contained religious texts or prayers. Luc have you checked yours as from memory the compartments were built into the block construction of the underlying wood core and had either been ‘sealed’ under the dry lacquer finish or were not obvious at first inspection.


Richard

Thanks Richard, it is seated on a kind of box, with a secret layer. In the layer, there is a theespoon with prayor, and a bamboo holder for a second theespoon,. The holder is a perfec example of the wabi-sabi philosophy. It looks like it is broken, but glued with gold, so called kinsugi. Everything what one can expect from Sen no Rikyu.
And yes glass eyes.

Luc Taelman wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2017 1:13 pm Thanks Richard, it is seated on a kind of box, with a secret layer. In the layer, there is a theespoon with prayor, and a bamboo holder for a second theespoon,. The holder is a perfec example of the wabi-sabi philosophy. It looks like it is broken, but glued with gold, so called kinsugi. Everything what one can expect from Sen no Rikyu.
And yes glass eyes.

Luc,

Can you share a picture of the teaspoon and bamboo holder?