While Hayashi Kotaro's Shino pots are spectacular - no wonder since he studied with Kato Kozo who made some of the finest modern Shino wares - it’s in his Oribe where his talent seemed to truly shine. Running in washes down this impressively large vessels, the rich greens are interrupted by Hayashi’s spiralling combed incised marks.

The torn texture of the clay lets the green copper glaze play. Or maybe it’s the glaze that highlights the clay. Either way, Hayashi mastered this synergy, so distinctive to Oribe, at a young age. He made this vase before he was 30 years old, so he was understandably a rising star of Mino ware before his death at 41 years old.

Green Oribe is perhaps the most common kind, with its sections of white and iron underglaze painting. However, Hayashi preferred an all-green Oribe, known as so-Oribe, or Monochrome Oribe, which features the interplay of clay and glaze. Hayashi’s rustic forms and overall glazing heralded the future of Oribe. You can see hints of Higashida Shigemasa’s cutting edge pots to come.

What’s special about this pot are its accessories. The box features Hayashi's elegant calligraphy. The wrapping cloth is not just stamped but also signed. And the original CV was hand-calligraphed on beautiful paper.

Regarding the vase's condition, there is a fine crack in the glaze's crazing and a 1/4” glaze loss in one spot at the base. This box’s wood - perhaps cedar - is heavily grained, knotted, and fragile. The lid warped at some point, and some of the joins were repaired with glue. The sides loosened in its latest shipment so I have re-glued those sides and reinforced the inside corners. Over time the box's bottom cracked, so I added a layer of wood to help distribute the base’s weight. At close to 55 years old, this box has character.