Posted 7 months ago
Faith.k
(62 items)
Japanese teacups, picked up at 2nd hand store a few months ago, I didn't notice that they have different style bases until I was cleaning them, not sure if that's significant in any way, but I am curious if that might mean different periods of time for the manufacture dates, still trying to find out online, but the similar sets have matched bases, so I'm unsure if I have a matched pair, or something that was cobbled together at some point. China is fairly delicate, and painting done very well.
The literal translation of meoto yunomi is "couple teacup" . While they are traditionally given to couples at weddings, they are also given to couples, married or not, at any time, though more often to married couples. I have heard from several married couples who visited Japan and were gifted sets of these cups and I have several of those sets in my collection.
I have a very similar set to yours in my collection and posted it a few years ago:
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/user/kwqd/meoto-yunomi
Your cups depict the Rokkasen (literally, "six poetry immortals"). These are six famous Japanese poets of the ninth century who are widely considered to have been the best poets of the early Heian period. These poets are frequently depicted (along with their poetry -- that's the calligraphy!) on yunomi, teapots and sake cups. The Rokkasen are all male except for one, the female poet Ono no Komachi.
If you go to the following Wikipedia article and click through on the individual names, you'll probably be able to line up each figure with a name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rokkasen
Thanks kwqd, your set actually popped up in my Google search a few months ago, and yours is matching, but the bottoms on mine are not, so maybe 2 sets cobbled together? This is my second set, first one is fukagawa seiji, but these have such nice work done on them, fun to look at!
Hello rhineisfine! Thank you for the information and links, will be checking that out asap, thanks for taking time to post!
These are beautiful!!!!