The boxes, of course, boost the price of the item, sometimes significantly.Chinese caddy set, c. Sometimes this is due to the items shape or size, which may not fit in anything but a custom made box. I have seen some very high quality items that come in cardboard. I wouldn't make a purchase decision based on whether or not the item comes in a wooden box. It is very well made so I'll need to find another space in the closet.Īlthough many high quality items come in boxes, so do many items of lesser quality. There are grooves near the top of the box and the wooden lid is placed in the grooves and slides out when you wish to remove the sake set. At first I thought a piece had separated during shipping, then I realized it had a slide-out lid that wasn't pushed in all the way. I received a Bizen sake set yesterday and was quite surprised by the quality of the box. Either that, or the seller can't read Japanese and assumes the signature is there. I read a warning from a legitimate seller that many sellers on Ebay claim to be selling his works in an artist signed box, and that in these cases, at a minimum, the box is not legitimate even if the item inside is. I've heard that one very well known artisan never signs his boxes. This artists items are not cheap, and they may deserve a better box or at least one with a real ribbon, but I don't care because the items inside the boxes have been of extremely high quality. There are actually paper bands that slide over the box-lid combination and hold the lid in place. All came in signed wooden boxes, and none had ribbons (no complaints here!). I've purchased five Aohagi items made by Noutomi Susumu. These items are hand-made and of high quality, but many hands are involved in the manufacturing process.Įven legitimate, artist signed boxes don't always come with a ribbon. Many boxes aren't signed, as the items inside may come from a kiln such as Somayaki where individual artisans don't normally sign boxes and in many cases it would be meaningless if they did. Others are cheap junk that are supplied by the importer to boost the esteem, and the price, of normal objects that come from the kiln without a box. Some of them are near works of art in and of themselves, as Picasso noticed. These boxes vary tremendously in quality. Some of the wood boxes are very nice, but they can take up a lot of space. I'm actually happy when I buy something that comes in cardboard. When I recieve them, I remove the item from the wood box, re-tie the ribbon (improperly, of course), re-wrap the wooden box in the bubble pac, throw it back in the shipping box and put that in the closet. It seems that they need to be protected as much as the pottery inside.
I find these wooden boxes to be somewhat of an annoyance. Impatiently, Rosanjin thundered "Not the box, not the box, you simple child! What I made is inside the box!" Picasso was fascinated by the smoothness of the wood and glowed with pleasure as he stroked the surface. Naturally it was in the finest of paulownia wood boxes. "When Rosanjin did call on Picasso, he brought this most renowned Western artist an example of his potting. This is how Sidney Cardozo writes about that encounter in his book The Art of Rosanjin. On a trip to Europe in 1954, he paid a visit to Picasso. "An interesting anecdote concerning Japanese wooden boxes concerns the eccentric potter-gourmet Rosanjin. In any case, I do love the boxes (Tomobako) and their calligraphy, an excellent touch.īTW this story from Robert Yellin's article is priceless: I was in fact puzzling over one of those very ribbon-knots last week, and figured I would just put it in the box and cross that bridge when I came to it. Thank you chamekke, for sharing with us your trove of knowledge! worth knowing about if you ever need either! Wabi Arts, the company who provided the last set of instructions, actually sells both boxes and ribbons.
#Japanese wooden tea box how to#
The instructions also include an explanation of how to tie off the ends so that they don't ravel: the old one is missing or too tattered to use), the following link tells you how. If you ever need to add a ribbon from scratch (e.g.
Or if you prefer text and photos or diagrams, try these: If you're interested in learning how to tie the ribbon on a tomobako, there's a pretty good video on YouTube: Robert Yellin explains, in the article The Box - Don't Throw It Away, why the tomobako is so important - and what happens when you carelessly let a mother cat have her litter in one Tomobako is a Japanese box (usually made of kiri or paulownia) that is specially made for storing chawan or other teawares.
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