24K Gold Kintsugi Kyoto Sake Carafe | Silver-Hearted Plum

A Crackled Oribe Carafe A Kyoto ware sake carafe in earthenware, its rounded body rising to a short upright mouth, with a looped handle at one side and a long tapering spout at the other. An ochre Oribe-green glaze pools and crackles in fine kannyu, broken by a bold, dynamic passage of dark iron-glaze brushwork. The foot is left as bare, warm clay. Born of Kyoto’s Heritage: This piece too is authentic Kyo-yaki pottery, handcrafted using time-honored techniques and refined by centuries of Japanese artistry. Learn more → The Art and Technique of Kyoto Ware Plum Blossom at the Spout Where the spout tip was lost to a chip, the break has been drawn back as a plum blossom — petals in colored urushi, the outline traced in 24K gold and the flower’s heart set in pure silver. The work was carried out over four months by Keiko Hata, a lacquer artist who creates both contemporary urushi artworks and restorations ranging from kintsugi to Buddhist-statue conservation, building the restoration in natural urushi and finishing the gold through roiro, the highest level of urushi polishing. Built on knowledge that has long sustained Japanese lacquer. Restoration as Decoration On most kintsugi, gold follows the fracture. Here the lost spout tip becomes a canvas — the loss is not hidden but re-read as a plum blossom, finished in gold, silver, and colored urushi. It places the piece in an older Japanese habit of seeing one thing in another, where the restoration itself carries decoration. Urushi, among Japan's oldest media, turns a broken edge into ornament.