Katagiri Sekishu
Katagiri Sekishû was the founder of the Sekishû school of tea culture, one of the major schools of the Edo period. He was a painter, Zen practitioner, tea master to Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna, Tokugawa shogunate official, and curator of the Tokugawa collections of tea implements and other treasures.
Establishing his school in opposition to the Sen schools of Sen Sôtan (grandson of Sen no Rikyû), Sekishû emphasized teacher-disciple lineages over hereditary inheritance. His school later splintered into many different branches as a result. This acceptance of diversity fueled the school's popularity among daimyô, many of whom wished to command authority in the tea practice of their own household, and to not be subject to the authority of the Sen family iemoto or anyone else.
Sekishû served as tea master to Tokugawa Ietsuna beginning in 1665.
Ôguchi Shôô (1689-1764, aka Gansui), a later master of the Sekishû school, produced Toji no tamoto, the only known text devoted entirely to the topic of tea practice for women, in 1721.
References
- Rebecca Corbett, Cultivating Femininity: Women and Tea Culture in Edo and Meiji Japan, University of Hawaii Press (2018), 49-50.
- Gallery labels, Metropolitan Museum.[1]
