25832 ITAYA Hazan Celadon incense burner (with edges)

Height 9.5cm
Diameter 13.0cm

He graduated from the sculpture department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (studied alongside Okakura Tenshin and Takamura Koun), and after winning numerous awards, including third place for his "Porcelain Gold and Purple Crystal Glazed Vase" at the Tokyo Industrial Exposition in 1907, he was appointed an Imperial Household Artist. He was the first ceramic artist to receive the Order of Culture, and in 1955, he declined an offer to be designated a Living National Treasure, as he believed ceramics to be art. This work was created by Japan's greatest ceramic artist, Itaya Hazan (1872-1963), who is regarded as an unparalleled great ceramic artist in modern times, and a pioneer in establishing modern art ceramics rather than traditional ceramics as a ceramic artist who studied the fundamentals of art.

He was a potter who had an immeasurable influence on the history of modern pottery, leaving behind such representative works as the "Bao Guang Painted Porcelain Vase with Rare Fruit Design" (Important Cultural Property, in the collection of the Izumiya Hakukokan Museum), the "Painted Porcelain Vase with Enju Design" (in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum of Arts), and the "Painted Porcelain Vase with Bird and Fruit Design" (Tsurui Museum of Art).