Posted 8 years ago
racer4four
(586 items)
Otaru is a town on the northern island of Hokkaido and is a bit of a hot spot for glassmaking in Japan. The town was originally called Otarunai (meaning "River of Sands" in Ainu) and after the Portugese introduced glass techniques in the 1800s it was a natural place for glassmaking to be established. There are a number of glass studios in the town, including Kitaichi Glass, Taisho Garasu and the studio that produced this piece, The Glass Studio in Otaru.
The Glass Studio in Otaru is the studio of the highly respected glass maker Chiyoji Asahara, and this work is typical of his style and talent.
This is a smallish but heavy vase made from a beautiful tropical-blue glass thickly cased in clear . Mica has been generously scattered over the blue and random, but deliberate, large glass bubbles have been incorporated in sections of the clear case. The shape has been squeezed to form an elliptical profile that rests so nicely in my hand. It's beautifully made and finished, and came with it's artist signed box and saffron wrap.
Height: 13cm
I can imagine how nice it fits a hand !
So nice! The box is art too, as Japanese are used to do :-)
Fitting in the hand, you could use it as a hand cooler as Victorians did!
Hand cooler - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_cooler
A St. Louis hand cooler | Christie's
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=2055761&sid=08db9aaf-d92b-49af-a49e-c35216b55817
It does Ivonne, just lovely. Many thanks.
Pascale thanks for the information about hand coolers. I never knew about them. Those poor ladies in all of their layers, sweating away, but expected to be cool and perfect.
This would be a perfect hand cooler! Thanks for the love and info.
Thanks Ken, I am fortunate to own lots of different and beautiful glass. My collecting is slowing now (family is happy) due to lack of space and funds.
I have been picking up smaller bits now, like jewellery, and envy your collection!
Do you still own and collect your cars?
This one is fantastic Karen! It has a very unique design with the blue sommerso on top held up by all those delicious bubbles. I really can't tell from the photo, but is it mica or burst silver foil? Either way, it adds another element to one of your beautiful pieces of Japanese glass!
I have to say I am not sure whether it's burst foil or mica Rick, although the size of the particles leans more to foil. It has been well blown to distribute it so randomly, but I'm not too good at picking the difference!
It's a lovely sommerso lump!
How I miss this, what's new...
Beautiful.
Regards
Alan
Thanks Alan, I always appreciate your opinion.
It's so beautiful:)