Akashiya Calligraphy Set (4 items) - Echizen lacquered box - Tonbo

A luxury, compact and highly practical shodo calligraphy set by Akashiya that you can use at home or on the go. The set contains most of the required accessories for Japanese brush calligraphy (shodo) in a beautiful, Echizen-nuri lacquered box.

Contents:

• Fine brush (fude)
• Inkstone 35 degrees (suzuri)
• Safflower ink three stars (sumi) (type 0,5, from Kobaien)
• Water jar/dropper
• Black Echizen-nuri lacquered box

Specifications:
Box size: 9 × 20 × 3cm
Ink colour: black

Made in Japan

shodō - Japanese Calligraphy

Japanese calligraphy (書道, shodō) also called shūji (習字) is a form of calligraphy, or artistic writing, of the Japanese language.

A number of tools are used to create a work of modern calligraphy.

The four most basic tools were collectively called the Four Treasures of the Study (文房四宝, bunbō shihō):

• A brush (筆, fude)
• An inkstick (墨, sumi).The hardened mixture of vegetable or pine soot and glue in the shape of a stick. The best inksticks are between 50 and 100 years old.
• Mulberry paper (和紙, washi)
• An inkstone (硯, suzuri) to grind the inkstick against, mixed with water.

Other tools include:

• A paper weight (文鎮, bunchin) to hold the paper in place
• A cloth (下敷き, shitajiki) to place under the paper (often newsprint is used as well) to prevent ink from bleeding through.
• A seal (印, in). The art of engraving a seal is called "tenkoku" 篆刻. The student is encouraged to engrave his own seal. The position of the seal or seals is based on aesthetic preferences. One is not allowed to put a seal on calligraphy of a sutra.