Square Sake Bottle (kakubin)

During the Edo period, landscape ink painting was sometimes emulated on ceramics. The monochrome landscape on this kakubin was inspired by the style of Sesshū Tōyō (1420-1506) and follows the literati artist’s taste for solitude and meditation in nature. The bottle is finely decorated with a continuous landscape scene in imitation of those found on horizontal scrolls. It is painted in cobalt blue under a crackled pinkish-cream glaze, which is clouded by darker stains known as amamori (rain leaks) created through years of use.