Cleaning the Tea Service (descriptive title)
- Date:
- 1898
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Honolulu Museum of Art
Key value factors: As self-carved and self-printed works, sosaku-hanga value is tied to the artist's reputation and edition size. Larger formats, earlier editions, and historically significant works command the highest prices.
A woman cleaning the tea service — the careful maintenance of the ceramic bowls, bamboo whisks, iron kettles, and other implements of tea ceremony — depicted in Shuntei's domestic genre mode. The tea service's cleaning was both a practical necessity and a form of mindful practice: each piece handled with the same care and attention that the tea ceremony itself demanded. From 1898, this print captures the specific ritual of maintenance that sustained the tea ceremony's material culture and, through it, its aesthetic values.
Woodblock print
c. 1832/38
Color woodblock print; oban
Yuki no Miyajima
1929
Color woodblock print; oban
1932
Woodblock print
Cleaning the Tea Service (descriptive title) was created by Miyagawa Shuntei (宮川春汀) in 1898.
Cleaning the Tea Service (descriptive title) depicts snow scenes, food & drink, and daily life.
