Yuzamashi and two cups

[Drax]

I picked up a few tea-related items from a recent spate of purchases from Japanese auctions (I mostly purchased books, though).

One of the odder items I found was a set of two cups and a yuzamashi (of the type that looks sort of like a gravy boat). The sides have very... unique drawings. And the items are all highly stained/crackled. The bottoms have a "私山" in thin red line (I would read that as Shizan, but hard to tell w/ Japanese for me sometimes).

Here's a picture of the yuzamashi on the side. Does anybody have any ideas at all on the back-story of these items...? I searched briefly for the name but really wasn't having much luck.

Picture of yuzamashi

yuzamashi - Copy.jpg (10.5 KiB) Viewed 725 times

[Drax]

Hrm, no ideas so far, eh? Well here's another one to ponder upon... a kutani kyuusu and cups.

[hopeofdawn]

Oo, lovely kyusu--I have a kutani find with an almost identical shape, and it's one of my favorite pots to use. Slightly different surface pattern/decorations, though.

I've often wondered what people thought of using these ball-shaped pots for sencha instead of the wider/flatter tokonome pots I usually see. I tend to use mine more for Chinese greens/oolongs, but it seems to handle everything equally well ....