Minoura Chikuho was a student of Sakaguchi Sounsai , who was considered by Tanabe Chikuunsai I as one of the most 'natural artists' of the Kansai-area tea milieu. Like Sounsai and several others of the 'old masters' of the field, Chikuho was born into a bamboo family. This basket features a rare 'cloud-figured' bamboo, prized within Chinese tea aesthetics, that was planted by his father in their small town in Hyogo Prefecture. Chikuho's father believed that with such prize material available, the local bamboo artisans would never lack for customers.  

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Chikuho's exhibition-level works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. This is the first work by Minoura we have found available in Japan. More modest in scale than the exhibition works visible in the collections above, it has the same exquisite workmanship and satisfying sense of both innovation and coherence.