Teabowl with design of grasses

In the hot summer, tea practitioners often choose shallow tea bowls to dissipate the heat of the tea as their guests drink. The form, glaze, and designs on this bowl are reminiscent of the pale green porcelains of Song-dynasty China (960–1279), yet it was not made in China, or even Japan, but in England.

Bernard Leach was born to British parents in Hong Kong; his grandparents were missionaries living in Japan. He moved to Japan as a young man to study ceramics and went on to become an influential figure in Japan’s Mingei (folk art) movement. In 1920, he founded the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall, with Japanese potter Hamada Shoji (1894–1978). Together they promoted utilitarian folk pottery combining influences from Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and European ceramics.