焔Maison HomuraShop
0535
二 · Clay — Kaga, Ishikawa

Kutani ware

Nothing here was left to chance. Not one whisker.

16 pieces on the shelf ↓
Kutani ware — Kaga, Ishikawa
Kaga, Ishikawa · Overglaze enamel, five colours

Kutani is Shigaraki's opposite temperament, and standing them together is the point.

The piece is fired first. Then it is painted — green, yellow, red, purple, navy, the gosai, the five colours — and fired a second time at a lower heat so the enamel sits up on the surface with the thickness of lacquer. Run a finger across a Kutani plate and you can feel the painting standing above the glaze.

Film · 1:04He left his family to steal this
Read the narration

To steal this, a man left his wife and child behind. Japan, the 1650s. Only one corner of the country knew how to make porcelain: Arita. So the lord of Kaga sent one of his men to learn it. Goto Saijiro. The story goes he stayed for years. He married. He had a child. And when he'd learned enough, he ran. Home. Alone. Back in a mountain village called Kutani, the kilns were lit. White porcelain, painted in five thick colours. But fifty years later, the kilns went cold. Nobody knows why. So archaeologists started digging in Arita. And they found the same five-colour shards. Maybe the masterpieces called Kutani were made in Arita all along. The argument reached Japan's parliament. It still isn't settled. What nobody argues about is the lion. In Japan, the king of beasts by the front door keeps evil out. It's the classic gift for a new home, or a new shop. Maison Homura has Kutani lions and vases. Link in profile. A man gave up his family for these colours. And nobody agrees whose they are.

On the shelf now
See the whole Kutani ware shelf · 16 pieces →
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How it works
  1. Write to the house. A person in Fukuoka replies, usually within a day or two.
  2. When a piece is agreed, the house sends you a private payment link, and you pay by card.
  3. It ships from Japan.

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Kutani ware — at the workshop
At the workshop
How it is made
  1. 素焼きSuyaki

    The moulded clay is fired once, plain white, with no colour on it yet.

  2. 骨描きKotsu-gaki

    The outlines of every pattern are drawn in dark enamel with a fine brush.

  3. 色絵Iro-e

    The five Kutani colours go on over the glaze — green, yellow, red, purple, indigo.

  4. 金襴手Kinrande

    Gold line and gold leaf last of all, then a final low firing to fix them.

Because the colour goes on after the fire, nothing is surrendered to the kiln. A Kutani lion is not a lion that happened. It is a lion that was decided, whisker by whisker, by a person holding a very small brush.

The lion itself is a guardian. Karashishi sit in pairs at shrine gates, one mouth open, one closed — the first sound and the last, the beginning and the end of everything. Indoors they are set out to keep a room in order.

Kutani ware — from the right
From the right
Walk around it
Kutani ware — FrontKutani ware — LeftKutani ware — BackKutani ware — Right
Notes
The five colours
Green, yellow, red, purple, navy
The order
Fire, then paint, then fire lower
The surface
Enamel stands proud of the glaze
The lion
A guardian; they come in pairs
About the place

The kiln opened in 1655 in a mountain village in the Kaga domain, and then — for reasons still argued over — it closed around 1730 and stayed closed for eighty years. Everything from that first run is called Ko-Kutani, old Kutani, and there is not much of it.

Kutani · Overglaze porcelain →Ask us to find one →The Middle and the Snow Coast · By region →

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