Finely Inlaid Abalone Antique Japanese Hibachi

Details

Description

Look closely at the gold flowering branch worked across this bowl and one small detail stops you, a single petal … Read more Look closely at the gold flowering branch worked across this bowl and one small detail stops you, a single petal isn't gold at all, it's shell, inlaid into the lacquer so it catches light the gold around it simply can't. That's raden, mother-of-pearl or abalone shell set directly into wet lacquer, a technique Japanese craftsmen have practiced since the Heian period and one reserved, historically, for pieces meant to do more than just hold up. Paired here with fine gold maki-e chrysanthemum and blossom work, it turns a simple keyaki wood bowl into something considerably harder to make than it looks. The bowl itself keeps the same full, rounded profile as the others in this group, a fitted copper liner still seated inside from its working life as a charcoal hibachi, the wood's grain running warm and unbroken beneath the decoration.
At 11 inches across and 8 inches tall, it has real substance without being oversized, enough presence to anchor a console or a low table on its own. Set it where the light moves across it through the day, morning or late afternoon both work, and that single shell petal will do something a photograph can't quite capture.

• **Please bear in mind that colors of products shown may vary slightly from their original color due to monitor display settings or photography studio. See less