Ceramics Repaired With Gold

The meaning of kintsugi kintsukuroi gold repair art.

Ceramics repaired with gold.

The history of kintsugi. Our ceramic repair conservators work with hard and soft paste porcelain bone china stoneware terracotta earthenware and glass to create invisible repairs. Some four or five centuries ago in japan a lavish technique emerged for repairing broken ceramics. Trust the japanese to.

As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object rather than something. In the 500 year old art of kintsugi which translates more or less as joining with gold broken pottery is repaired with a seam of lacquer and precious metal. This tradition known as kintsugi meaning golden seams or kintsukuroi golden repair is still going strong. This traditional japanese art uses a precious metal liquid gold liquid silver or lacquer dusted with powdered gold to bring together the pieces of a broken pottery item and at the same time enhance the breaks.

Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with a camouflaged adhesive the kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap lacquer dusted with powdered gold silver or platinum. Kintsugi 金継ぎ golden joinery also known as kintsukuroi 金繕い golden repair is the japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold silver or platinum a method similar to the maki e technique. Japanese kintsukuroi chawan. The translation from japanese of kintsugi or kintsukuroi means golden joinery or repair with gold where the gold powder is applied on lacquer some refer to it as kintsugi art with a metaphor of kintsugi life re birth or wabi sabi philosophy this technique transforms broken ceramic or pottery into beautiful.

If an accident happens our experienced conservators can repair damaged chipped or cracked ceramics ornaments tableware pottery sculptures and figurines whether modern or antique. This inspired him to find an elegant way to amend the ceramic and as a result kintsugi was born. Once completed beautiful seams of gold glint in the conspicuous cracks of ceramic wares giving a one of a kind appearance to each repaired piece. It s called kintsugi 金継ぎ or kintsukuroi 金繕い literally golden kin and repair tsugi.

Kintsugi or kintsukori dates back to the 15th century when according to legend shogun ashikaga yoshimasa broke his favorite chawan a chinese ceramic tea bowl and sent it back to china for repair it was returned and fixed but bound by ugly metal staples.