Japanese Lacquerware & Urushi

About this book

A single famous region — or two hundred lacquer regions, techniques and makers in one guide? Japanese Lacquerware & Urushi covers 200 entries in a single uniform format: every entry gives the Region & Materials, the Origins, How to Recognise it in a shop, and Buying & Experience — where to buy, what to check, and how to live with the piece afterwards.

Wajima's stone-hard jinoko grounds and Tsugaru's patient speckled layers; the urushi tree, its summer tappers and the damp muro cupboard where lacquer actually cures; roiro mirror black, honey-clear kijiro over figured keyaki, vermilion that wears to black in the Negoro way; maki-e sprinkled in graded gold, shell inlay that fires like moonlight, lacquer carved like wood; and the working knowledge that protects a buyer — the sixty-second shop routine, the loupe test, the seven differences between real urushi and resin 'lacquer-style', the price ladder, washing and storage, recoating, kintsugi, and the honest allergy and food-safety facts (raw sap respected, cured tableware safe).

No photographs: the recognition fields are written for the hand and eye instead — weight, warmth, edges, depth under raking light — because those are checks a buyer can actually perform in a shop or demand in a listing's photographs.

Companion, kept separate: Japanese Traditional Crafts surveyed lacquer as one family in a five-material survey. This book is the lacquer deep dive — regions, techniques and makers across the whole field, every entry written fresh.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.