Japanese Hagi Ware Plates – The Seseragi, Hand-Trailed Glaze In Cobalt

Water, remembered in glaze.
A set of six hand-formed plates in Hagi ware (萩焼), from the coastal kiln town in Yamaguchi where potters have drawn on their prized local clay for over four centuries. These are a contemporary expression of that tradition: the softly undulating rims and warm exposed clay are pure Hagi, while ribbons of cobalt, sky blue and chartreuse — trailed by hand across a milky white ground — belong to the modern studio idiom, abstract and quick as a stream in early summer. The set takes its name from seseragi, the Japanese word for the murmur of shallow water. No two plates repeat; the decoration is unrepeatable by nature.
Hagi holds a place of quiet reverence in Japan, second only to Raku in the old ranking of tea bowls, and is prized for surfaces that grow gentler with years of use. The occasional iron freckle rising through the glaze is a signature of the clay rather than a flaw. The plates carry an impressed kiln seal to the unglazed base, where the loquat-orange Hagi clay is left exposed.
At 13.5 cm, these are plates for the smaller ceremonies of the table — wagashi, the first strawberries of the season, a square of dark chocolate beside an espresso — and they display as happily on a dresser or open shelf as they serve at table. Selected by Renaras, an Amsterdam atelier devoted to Japanese ceremonial silk; they sit beautifully alongside our silk table runners.
Set of six. Handmade in Japan.