17x14x5 Inch Gyouzan Rectangle Bonsai Pot #432 – Decorative Bottom Border, Glazed, Chop Mark

Two things make a Gyouzan pot hard to find, and this one has both. The kiln built its name on scale, which in Japan is the exception rather than the rule. Living space is tight, benches are small, and most Japanese potters made their reputations on shohin and smaller work. Gyouzan made large pots, and American collectors, who tend to have both the room and the appetite for big dramatic trees, have been the beneficiaries. The glazed pieces are the harder half to find. Many of the glazed Gyouzan pots in circulation are fifty to sixty years old, production of the glazed work stopped at some point, and we have never had a straight answer as to why. Finding a clean original example now is genuinely difficult.

The kiln sits in the mountains, well away from the gallery circuit, and Yukizyou Nakano worked there quietly for a long time. He has since passed, and his son Yuuji has taken the kiln on. That makes the pots carrying Yukizyou's own hand a closed set, and demand has climbed accordingly. Worth turning this one over before you commit: a nail signature on the base is what separates a handmade piece from a production run, and it is the first thing an experienced collector checks.

At 17 by 14 inches and 5 inches deep, this is a large display pot with serious root volume. The depth suits a conifer or a heavy trunk that needs soil mass rather than a developed deciduous root system that no longer does. Gyouzan clay carries a weight and warmth that sits back instead of competing, which is exactly the job a container is supposed to do under a well-developed tree.