3 Inch Deep Bushuan Round Bonsai Pot #735 – Heavy Drip Glaze, Oribe Green, Chop & Nail Signed

A flower carved into the side, under a heavy oribe green drip. Bushuan worked carved relief into a number of his pots, and a carved piece is a different find from a plain one. Under a glaze this thick the carving has to be cut deep enough to survive being filled, which is a decision made at the forming stage rather than rescued later.

The body is wide and the rim flares outward, so the glaze has a long unbroken run from rim to foot. That is where the drip does its work: applied thick, layer on layer, then fired so it pools where it catches and thins where it does not. The pot stands on pronged feet, and it carries a chop alongside a nail signature scratched into the clay by hand while it was still leather-hard.

At 3 inches deep with a wide body this is shohin scale with better root volume than the footprint suggests, which makes it more forgiving than most pots at this size. A glaze this saturated is conventionally paired with deciduous or flowering material, where the colour has foliage to answer. With a carving on one side, decide early which face is the front.