Old or New?

A tea caddy with age

When I first saw this tea caddy I was confused.  “Is it old or is it new” I thought. Knowing that it was going to be exhibited at an antique fair in Hong Kong, I began to think it was old.  Nevertheless I decided that it was not ‘old’ as in antique but old enough to be called ‘vintage’.

It was the colouring, the design of the flowers and their rendering, which made me think it was a piece from the 1920s or there about.

This was a period in Japan when ideas from the West were still very fashionable but somehow had an awkwardness that traditional Japanese art and craft did not have, displaying instead a confidence and unshakable authenticity.

This eclectic and uneasy balance continued until the 1940s and 50s when Japan more readily embraced Western culture but this time with a confidence to display a homegrown vitality instead of something rather artificial.

On reading the notes Takashi Wakamiya had sent me, however, I soon realised that this caddy was new and of considerable interest.  It was made and decorated by Takashi’s workshop, Hikoju Makie in Wajima.

The way the lacquer was applied also seemed to be saying ‘vintage’.  And then there was the ‘glitter’.  And the combination of colours, too, I thought gave it a very particular character—ever so slightly dusty but gleaming nevertheless.  The blue was certainly a surprise.

It is not unusual for a very old piece of Japanese lacquerware to look ‘new’, simply because the finish is so perfect and the motifs are timeless.  But this caddy has a very particular presence.  It was not a surprise to hear that it was snapped up by a hungry collector on the first day of the fair in Hong Kong.

Although the glitter was reminiscent of the kind of gold or silver makie work that is often seen on traditional true lacquerware emerging from Japanese workshops, this was different.

Samples of finish using Kyocera gemstone grains.Photo Copyright © Bill Tingey

Takashi made use of Kyocera’s artificial gemstone technology to obtain the look he wanted.  Fine grains of opal were used and then, a number of samples were made culminating in this tea ceremony tea caddy—looks vintage but is consummately new, expressing more than just the present.

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