6x2x2.5 Inch Bushuan Oval Bonsai Pot #773 – Heavy Drip Glaze, Oribe Green, Chop Mark

Most Bushuan pots are about the glaze. This one has a frog carved into the side, and that changes what it is. Carved relief appears on only some of his work, usually shishi guardian lions or other figures worked directly into the clay, and a carved piece is a different and often more prized find than a plain one. Our own note on this pot records the frog as a rare subject even by that standard.

The glaze is the other half of it. Bushuan built his reputation reproducing the effects of noborigama, the traditional wood-fired climbing kilns, using a modern electric kiln instead. The heavy drip is the product of layering rather than chance: three or four coats on a typical piece, and on the heaviest examples collectors have counted as many as seven. That is what makes the glaze run, pool and break as it moves down the pot. It reads as luck and it is not. Getting oribe green to break evenly all the way around a pot this small means knowing precisely how much to load on and precisely what the kiln will do with it. Here the rim finishes ivory white where the glaze thins over the edge.

At roughly 6 inches long and 2.5 inches deep this sits at shohin scale, which is where the bulk of his work lives and where a heavy drip is hardest to control. The depth is generous for the footprint, so there is more root volume here than a pot this size usually offers. Pronged feet lift it clear of the bench for airflow.