Octagonal Bowl
This octagonal Ko-Imari bowl is hand-painted in sometsuke blue. Its faceted white porcelain is adorned with karakusa scrollwork and floral sprays. Ko-Imari marks the golden age of Japanese export porcelain. It was shipped from the port of Imari to Europe across the 17th and 18th centuries, and it has been sought by Western collectors ever since.
Gold Edges, Silver Seams
Where shards were lost, the breaks are not hidden but filled — wide passages of green colored urushi, edged in 24K gold and set with raden mother-of-pearl, sit as luminous panels across the blue-and-white, while the ordinary joins are traced in pure silver. This hybrid kintsugi restoration was carried out over five months in natural urushi by Keiko Hata, a Kyoto City University of Arts–trained lacquer artist whose contemporary artwork has earned formal recognition, working within a centuries-old lacquer tradition in Japan.
Islands of Green Urushi
Green sections appear where the painted vine was interrupted. The missing areas now stand out as deliberate islands of color amidst the cobalt scrollwork. Gold outlines and raden flecks catch the light against the deep blue, turning the restoration into an additional layer of ornamentation rather than concealing the seams.
