{"product_id":"vintage-japanese-studio-vase-grey-ash-glaze-hand-painted-herons-in-reeds-small-ikebana-vase","title":"Vintage Japanese Studio Vase, Grey Ash Glaze, Hand Painted Herons in Reeds, Small Ikebana Vase","description":"\u003cp\u003eCompact and full-bellied, this small Japanese studio vase narrows to a modest, unadorned neck — a shape sized less for a full ikebana arrangement than for a single stem, the kind of restrained scale favored in tea-room (chabana) flower display. Its surface is glazed in a soft, matte grey with a faint metallic sheen, over which two birds are brushed in reserve white against the grey ground: long-legged, standing quietly among a few spare strokes of reed. These read as herons or egrets (sagi) rather than cranes — cranes in Japanese decorative art are almost always shown paired with pine and tortoise as symbols of longevity, often mid-flight or dancing, while a heron standing still among reeds belongs to its own quieter painting tradition, ashi ni sagi (蘆に鷺), long used in East Asian ink painting to evoke autumn wetlands and a settled, watchful stillness.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTurned over, the base reveals a warm reddish-purple stoneware body, flecked with dark mineral inclusions — a clay type consistent with the iron-rich clays used across the Shigaraki-Iga ceramic region, prized by studio potters for the way it colors and textures under a light ash glaze. A small seal is carved directly into the wet clay before firing, a mark of individual authorship rather than a stamped factory signature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe vase arrives in its original wooden tomobako, the lid inscribed by hand — the kind of box a potter or a piece's owner commissions specifically for a work considered worth keeping and passing on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the collector, this is a vase that trades scale for intimacy: small enough to sit in a single hand, quiet enough in its glaze and brushwork to reward close, unhurried looking, and painted with a subject — herons at rest among reeds — that has carried the same mood in East Asian art for centuries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"all: initial;\" class=\"notranslate\"\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Chikoyaki","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46348934643791,"sku":"CKY-CER-42342","price":130.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0667\/6588\/1423\/files\/IMG_E7588_result.jpg?v=1785842210","url":"https:\/\/chikoyaki.com\/products\/vintage-japanese-studio-vase-grey-ash-glaze-hand-painted-herons-in-reeds-small-ikebana-vase","provider":"Chikoyaki","version":"1.0","type":"link"}