Topic: Japanese chawan and bowls

[flying free]

Hi
I bought three chawan and bowls recently.  The bowls are labelled and marked and I wondered whether anyone could tell me what the signature is please?
I also wondered whether these were tenmoku glaze and whether there might be any information on the chawan (I'll post those on a separate post).  I thought possibly raku for those?  I haven't a clue basically and any help would be very much appreciated    Many thanks in advance.
m

[flying free]

more pics in case I had the sig the wrong way up

[keith]

Look like  raku to me but I'm not very familiar with this type of pottery,the signature on the cha wan(tea bowls) is in what I think is called 'flowing script' and very difficult to read,my Kanji dictionary has 47,000 characters and none in this type of script  so :czy:to be honest I'm not sure which way up they are either and I've been staring at Japanese for a few years now,sorry I couldn't help,
                                            Keith.

[flying free]

Keith don't worry and thank you very much for looking!  I really appreciate it.
I guess these will be filed under unknown for a while at least.
m

[keith]

P.s,I think the 1st pic' of the sig' is the right way up(I think)

[flying free]

Thanks   someone on another board has said that the middle character on the label (the square with cross lines inside) means rice.
m

[Mosquito]

Hi, I agree with Keith, the first pic of the sig. is the right way up, but unfortunately I too can't read this cursive style.

The square character 田on the label on its own means 'rice field', but when combined with 有 to make 有田 it just means Arita, the area where the piece was made.

The third character 焼 contains the fire radical, I don't know the Japanese pronunciation, but in this context it seems to be translated as 'ware', hence the gold label simply reads 'Arita ware'.

Steven

[keith]

Steven's spot on,the third character is 'yaki' meaning ware.

[flying free]

thank you both so much.  I really appreciate your interest and help.  Hopefully I may come across the signature on my searches at some point (at least I know which way up to look at it now).
In the meantime  I shall just enjoy them as being very pretty pieces
and perhaps try and find out a bit more about the glazes etc, learning along the way.
regards
m

[keith]

Recently came across the swirl pattern impressed in your last picture,this.I believe,is common to teabowls in fact I just picked one up myself

[keith]

Picture......