15x12x4 Inch Yamaaki Oval Bonsai Pot #57 – Thick Worm-Eaten Rim, Unglazed, Double Chop & Nail Signed

An unglazed oval from the Yamaaki kiln with the worm-eaten rim the kiln is known for. Mushikui is cut into the clay by hand to look as though weather and insects have been working at it for years, and that is the intent. A bonsai is meant to read as old, and a pot that already looks weathered lets a young tree borrow some of that age. Here the rim is thick and flares outward, and the feet are cut roughly rather than squared off, which keeps the whole pot in the same register as the carving.

It is second-generation Yamaaki, from the middle of the kiln's three generations, and it carries a double chop alongside a nail signature. The chops are pressed seals, repeated across the kiln's output. The nail signature is scratched in by hand while the clay is leather-hard, and it is the mark that says a specific artisan finished this pot rather than that it merely left the kiln. We have seen only one other close to this one.

At 15 by 12 inches and 4 inches deep it is large without being deep. Four inches suits a tree whose roots are already established rather than one still building mass, and the oval softens a heavy trunk. Unglazed clay of this kind darkens with watering and takes patina over the years, which will only add to a surface already carved to look weathered.