Japanese Shanshu tea cup

[ClareBk]

Our museum has a Japanese Shanshu? Shanshui? tea cup that we know little about. The size is 74x65mm. Can anyone guide us with any information? Someone may be able to read the writing?

 

[Majestic]

Would love to help, but reading cursive Japanese is super tough even when its ink on paper.
Reading it inscribed on pottery is beyond my ability, I'm afraid.

 

[ClareBk]

Would love to help, but reading cursive Japanese is super tough even when its ink on paper.
Reading it inscribed on pottery is beyond my ability, I'm afraid.

No worries, thanks for looking! So it is cursive Japanese, I will have to enlargen and try to see if anyone can decipher.

 

[Majestic]

Yes, its highly cursive.
The poem starts from the bit that's circled. If you can locate that bit, and start your photos from that section, reading/going from right to left, it might help whoever is reading. So that part circled is the start of the poem, and it continues to the left (I guess in a clockwise fashion, if you are looking at the cup from the top).
Hope this makes sense.
The other cup has a similar section, and is similarly oriented.

 

[Majestic]

Here is the bit on the other cup. It may be the same poem on both cups.

 

[Toritoribe]

I think that part is the beginning of 為書, not the poem. It's 二〇三高地, so those two cups would be related to the Russo‐Japanese War. (The two poems would be different ones.)

 

[ClareBk]

I think that part is the beginning of 為書, not the poem. It's 二〇三高地, so those two cups would be related to the Russo‐Japanese War. (The two poems would be different ones.)

Do you think it is this poem which relates to the Russo Japanese War?

O My Brother, You Must Not Die

by Akiko Yosano


O my young brother, I cry for you
Don't you understand you must not die!
You who were born the last of all
Command a special store of parents' love
Would parents place a blade in children's hands
Teaching them to murder other men
Teaching them to kill and then to die?
Have you so learned and grown to twenty-four?

O my brother, you must not die!
Could it be the Emperor His Grace
Exposeth not to jeopardy of war
But urgeth men to spilling human blood
And dying in the way of wild beasts,
Calling such death the path to glory?
If His Grace possesseth noble heart
What must be the thoughts that linger there?

 

[Toritoribe]

Do you think it is this poem which relates to the Russo Japanese War?

No.
The larger images must be helpful to read.

 

[ClareBk]

No.
The larger images must be helpful to read.

Have requested better photographs and continuous so it will be able to be read.

 

[ClareBk]

We now have closer up photos of the bowl and cup from the starting point but don't seem to be able to load them up.

 

[ClareBk]

If anyone can help with the translation that would be very much appreciated.

 

[ClareBk]

Would love to help, but reading cursive Japanese is super tough even when its ink on paper.
Reading it inscribed on pottery is beyond my ability, I'm afraid.

Hi Majestic, found out it is Chinese script writing, we are trying to take better photos to be able to translate.

 

[ClareBk]

Hi Majestic, found out it is Chinese script writing, we are trying to take better photos to be able to translate.

We are going to video the two items , as well as transcribing it when permitted to view and put it on a turntable and focus on one line at a time. Another museum has looked at it in the UK and said that it says made from the clay from Hill 203 so we think it must be made by a relative but will know when this happens.