Suiseki, Doban & Stand

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Rikizo, Shimizu Hirohisa

Well today I finally had sufficient time to setup the light tent, camera, lights, laptop, etc. to shoot some pots, stands etc.  Well 20 photos into the shoot and I receive an error message on my camera.  I’m thinking my flash card if full, so not a problem as I’m writing the images to my laptop so I just turn that off and shoot again. Same error message.  I take off the lens to see the mirror on our Canon 5d has dropped off.  I’m shocked. I do a bit of research to see that this is a not so common problem with the 5d, but common enough they are offering a free fix.  So off the camera goes to Canon tomorrow to get fixed for free. What a pain though.

Well today we are posting two setups we shot before the camera drama.  Both are very small suiseki (< 7cm each) along with doban and stands.  So here we go.

Suiseki, doban & stand

The suiseki is from Cache Creek here in California and is ~5cm wide.  The doban is from Japan it is ~10cm with a stand made by Rikizo 19cm wide.  In fact both stones today are from this same area.  We purchased them from our friend David out of Sacramento who specializes in small stones.

Good small stones are very hard to find, we know because we search for them all of the time.  We tend to collect, or purchase, stones that are less than 15cm in size so this means we are also looking for small stands and dobans in this size range as well.

The doban is of decent quality but without a maker’s mark. We estimate it to be 40-50 years old.  The stand is by Rikizo and they can be purchased from our friend Tomohiro at his nursery Koju-en in Kyoto or through his web site. Just click the Rikizo name above.  Tomohiro specalizes in shohin and we hope you get a chance to visit his nursery or you can see him at the Green Club during Kokufu.

On the stand, please forgive the felt protectors that make the stand look like it has deformed feet.  We tend to place protectors on almost everything including the doban, they are just clear and you can’t see them in this shot.

Suiseki, doban and stand

We have posted about this stone before. It is around 7cm in size and being displayed in a Japanese doban, of higher quality, that is ~15cm in size.  The stand is made by Hirohisa Shimizu and is 24cm long.  Unfortunately his page of stands has been taken down otherwise we would have loved to show you his other stands.

We think this combination really works. The doban has a very dark patina and a maker’s mark on it.  We hadn’t previously taken a photo of it so therefore I didn’t want to take the display apart just to shoot the mark.

The stand is frankly just beautiful. They are made from a single piece of rosewood which is his specialty and the price reflects this as well.  Today his stands run between 25,000 and 40,000¥. We purchased three of his stands and when the camera is repaired we will do a post on them.  If you are interested in purchasing these high quality stand let us know and we can put you in touch with an intermediary in Japan to purchase them. One thing we like about his stands is that they come with a kiri-wood box and both the box and the material wrapping the stand have an ink impression of his artist mark.

The difficulty of course with using stands with small suiseki is that the stand can not “feel heavy” or it will overwhelm the stone.

Shimizu, Hirohisa stand 24cm

The stand is beautifully made in rosewood and has simple yet elegant lines.  Note how he has reduced the bulk of the stand’s corners by carving out an indentation.

Shimizu, Hirohisa stand 24cm

Click any of the photos for a larger version of the image.

Shimizu, Hirohisa stand - corner details

As you can see his craftsmanship is superb with beautifully flowing lines.  This stand maker also takes custom orders and we hope to take advantage of that in the near future to have a stand made for our long but thin dan-seki stone.

We hope that you enjoyed the post. We certainly enjoy seeing these being displayed in our home.

 

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