Japanese Cloisonne: What Shippo Is, and Why Kyoto's Is Different
Glass enamel, fired onto silver. The kiln decides the final colour, so no two come out alike.
Look closely at many pieces of Japanese shippo and you will see fine silver lines running between the colours. Those lines are not drawn. They are wire, laid by hand on the metal beneath, one segment at a time, before any colour goes on at all. On other pieces there is no wire at all, and the colours run into one another - a different technique, and an easier one.
What fills the spaces is glass. Fired, cooled, filed flat, and fired again - seven to ten times over.
What shippo is
Silver wire draws the pattern. Glass enamel fills it.
Shippo is written with the characters for “seven treasures.” The seven are named in Buddhist scripture - lapis lazuli, agate, pearl, silver and gold among them - and the craft takes its name from the claim that the fired work is more beautiful still.
In English it is called cloisonné. Glass glaze is laid on a base of copper or silver and fired at high temperature. How thickly the glaze is laid, and the smallest difference in kiln temperature, changes the result - so no two pieces come out the same.
It also does not fade. That is why the lapis on Tutankhamun's mask and the decoration at Nikkō Tōshōgū still hold their colour.
From Tutankhamun to Kyoto
The technique began in ancient Egypt - the gold mask of Tutankhamun is cloisonné work - and travelled the Silk Road to China. From China it reached Japan in the Asuka period, though for centuries it stayed obscure.
Then came the Meiji era, and shippo became a sensation. Masters emerged - Namikawa Yasuyuki, Namikawa Sōsuke, the makers of Owari - the technique advanced sharply, and pieces exported to Europe and America sold for extraordinary sums.
The four techniques
- Musen - wireless. Fired without metal wire on the surface. The easiest of the four.
- Yūsen - wired. Silver or copper wire outlines every shape. The hardest: at least ten years to master.
- Zōgan - inlaid. A recess is cut into the base and the glaze fired into it. Common in Europe.
- Shōtai - bodiless. The metal base is dissolved away at the very end, leaving only glass.
Kyoto, Owari, Tokyo
The Gion Festival, in glass.
Three Japanese centres, three characters.
Owari shippo, in Aichi, works in silver wire and favours flowers - cherry, plum - and landscapes. Showy, finely made, and expensive. Tokyo shippo is the casual end: moulds are made and glaze poured in, which allows volume and keeps prices low.
Kyoto shippo - kyō-shippo - spans the whole range, from everyday pieces to work of the highest order. That breadth is why it is the most widely collected of the three.
How a piece is made
About ten stages, all of them by hand.
- The base is shaped with a spatula. Copper and silver are soft enough to work.
- The design is drawn on it in sumi ink.
- Silver wire is laid along every ink line. This is the stage that takes the time, and the nerve.
- Glaze is dropped into each cell - seyu. The glaze has glass sand mixed through it, which is where the finished gloss comes from.
- It is fired. Then filled and fired again. Seven to ten times.
- The surface is ground flat with a glass file until the wires and the glass sit level.
Akagawa Yoshihiro
The Wind and Thunder Gods, a pair.
The pieces here are the work of Akagawa Yoshihiro, a senior figure in Kyoto shippo.
He does one thing that others do not: he drops glaze into the back of the base as well as the front. The colour that results is stronger, the gloss deeper, the surface brighter than ordinary cloisonné - which is the point at which the “seven treasures” name stops sounding like an exaggeration.
See the work
Framed panels to hang, and jewellery to wear. Ten pieces in all.
