Waller-Yoblonsky Fine Art

18th Century America had established social customs and code of manners about tea and the distinctive furnishings. Tea was expensive and it was delegated to the upper classes, therefore it was a status symbol. A great hostess would make and serve the tea, and guests were supposed to be adept at proper social chitchat. Furniture also played a role in the formation of fashionable tea drinking; a hostess would have to own at least one tea table and several chairs to pull off an adequately formal tea for an intimate group of friends. It was the equivalent of a classy cocktail party today. Pride was taken in a fashionable tea table with all the tea equipage (all the necessary equipment for a particular purpose). The scarcity of tea from the Orient along with the expense, plus the costly paraphernalia to serve the tea, left the American prosperous and governing classes to consume it. These upper class American homes would have owned a silver teapot, a silver creamer (aka cream jug), porc...

Japan is filled with great centers of ceramic production:  Shigarake, Bizen and Tokoname, just to name a few:  for this blog discussion will focus on unglazed or naturally glazed vases, except for one. The flower container/vase (hanaire), were frequently placed in the tokonama, a special alcove in a tea room.  The tea guest would ponder the hanaire in the tokonama, frequently paired with a wall hung hand-scroll that presents the general theme of the tea ceremony; for example autumn foliage in the hanaire and orange pumpkins painted on the scroll would announce cooler, shorter days and the seasonal theme of autumn (aki). The hanaire is one of the prized possessions in a Japanese household; it passes down the generations, hand to hand with its own special storage box (tomoboko) that consists of Japanese calligraphy that reveals the maker and the history of all those who have owned it.  While the pottery maybe signed the box reveals the pottery maker and the provena...