Japanese Hagi Ware Plates Selected by Renaras, Set of 6

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Description

Water, remembered in glaze.
Six hand-formed plates in Hagi ware (萩焼), from the coastal kiln town in Yamaguchi where potters … Read more Water, remembered in glaze.
Six hand-formed plates in Hagi ware (萩焼), from the coastal kiln town in Yamaguchi where potters have worked their prized local clay for over four centuries. These are a contemporary expression of that tradition: the softly undulating rim and warm exposed clay are pure Hagi, while the decoration — ribbons of cobalt, sky blue and chartreuse trailed by hand across a milky white ground — belongs to the modern studio idiom, abstract and quick as a stream in early summer. The set takes its name from seseragi, the Japanese word for the murmur of shallow water. The decoration is unrepeatable; no two plates in the set are the same.
Hagi holds a place of quiet reverence in Japan — second only to Raku in the old ranking of tea bowls — prized for surfaces that grow gentler with years of use. The occasional iron freckle rising through the glaze is a signature of the clay, not a flaw. An impressed kiln seal sits in the unglazed base, where the loquat-orange Hagi clay is left exposed.
At 13.5 cm, these are plates for the small moments of a table: wagashi, the first strawberries, a square of dark chocolate beside an espresso. Selected by Renaras, an Amsterdam atelier devoted to Japanese ceremonial silk; they sit naturally alongside our silk table runners.
Set of six. Handmade in Japan. See less