18x15x6 Inch Sara Rayner Oval Bonsai Pot #10005 – Etched Feet, Glazed, Nail Signed

A large glazed oval from Sara Rayner. The glaze is the reason to look twice. It runs deep, with yellow and green worked through it rather than sitting flat on the surface, so the colour shifts depending on where the light falls. The rim extends past the wall in a broad flat band, and the feet are etched rather than left plain. Both details give a pot this size somewhere for the eye to rest.

Rayner signs by hand, scratching her mark into the underside while the clay is still leather-hard. There is no stamp to look for. Each signature differs slightly from the last, which is what separates a signed studio pot from a production one.

At 18 by 15 inches and 6 inches deep this is a large pot with generous root volume. Six inches of depth points to a developed root system rather than recently collected material, and the oval carries the mass of a heavy trunk more gently than a rectangle would. A glaze with this much colour in it is conventionally paired with deciduous, flowering or fruiting species, where it can answer the foliage instead of disappearing behind it.