Bizen sake bottle

This Bizen sake flask is a work by the master craftsman Mitsuru Isezaki, a man who loved Bizen ware and made immense contributions to the region. It includes a biography dated to around 1999, suggesting it was created during that period. The finish is a textbook example of a Bizen climbing kiln firing, with the sesame (goma) glaze and sangiri (reduction-fired patches) evoking hazy clouds, while the clay body in the fire-sheltered areas (hima) takes on a golden hue, appearing much like a rainbow peeking through the sky. It has been thrown on the potter's wheel with the exceptional technique of a master, adjusted so that its weight is perfectly balanced when filled with sake. The form is a classic, orthodox Bizen katatsuki (shoulder-shouldered) sake flask—simple, without pretense, and truly elegant. Signed wooden box (shiho-san style)
Rim 3.4cm × Body diameter 8.5cm × Body diameter 8.5cm × Height 12.0cm Capacity 330cc Mitsuru Isezaki was born in 1934 as the eldest son of the Intangible Cultural Property holder Yozan Isezaki. He learned pottery from his father from a young age and majored in sculpture at the special art course of Okayama University. As an authentic practitioner of tea ceramics, he pursued the forms, clay textures, and firing techniques of the Momoyama period. He distinguished between the use of climbing kilns and medieval-style anagama kilns depending on the work, insisting on firing with pine wood and never using electric or gas kilns. He became a regular member of the Japan Kōgei Association in 1964 and received the Toyo Kaneshige Award in 1974. He received the Sanyo Shimbun Cultural Merit Award in 1994 and the 15th Tanabe Museum of Art Grand Prize in 1998. In March of that same year, he was designated as a Prefectural Important Intangible Cultural Property holder. He passed away in August 2011 at the age of 77.
Awards: Recipient of numerous honors, including the Toyo Kaneshige Award, Okayama Prefecture Cultural Encouragement Award, Sanyo Shimbun Award, Okayama Nichinichi Shimbun Art and Culture Merit Award, and the Grand Prize at the Tea Ceremony Sculpture Exhibition; Invited exhibitor at the Prefectural Art Exhibition.