One week, four ways to look: form, glaze, painting, marks

Start with the outline

Compare the long teal rectangle with the small yellow round. Look at the outline first, before the maker or the price.

A teal rectangle by Reiho · Yellow glaze, crackle, and a turtle

Then the surface

Reiho’s speckled blue-green, Keiun’s green breaking over blue, Furumoto’s yellow crackle: each asks to be seen close, and each in a different way.

Green, over blue

A pot is seen in turns

Bunzan’s small oval carries plum and bamboo on different sides. A painted pot is not a flat picture; it is an object seen in sequence.

Plum on one side, bamboo on the other

Only as far as the evidence goes

A foot can carry a cut name, a stamp, or brushed characters. The method matters, but a mark should be described only as far as the evidence permits — and a mark that does not match the record is worth describing rather than leaving out.

A mark you can’t place

Selected by hand in Tokyo

YAKUMO JAPAN is a Tokyo-based dealer in Japanese bonsai pots. We don’t make pots; we select them by hand and ship them from Tokyo to eligible destinations including the US, Canada, Australia, and parts of Europe and Asia. On this site we explain the clay, the glaze, the form and the makers — and what each mark on a foot does and does not tell you.