Kintsugi

金継ぎ / 15th century– / Technique / Vessel and Craft Techniques

Kintsugi is the Japanese craft of repairing broken ceramics with urushi lacquer and gold or silver, so the mend is shown rather than hidden. The Getty vocabulary files it under repairing, as a restorative process rather than a style. The break decides where the metal lines run, so one vessel can never produce the same drawing twice.

Kintsugi — Ko-Karatsu tea bowl repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · © Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Ko-Karatsu tea bowl repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0 · CC BY 2.0 · © Jean-Pierre Dalbéra
Kintsugi — Goryeo celadon ewer repaired with kintsugi, c. 1100–1150 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK · © Valerie McGlinchey
Goryeo celadon ewer repaired with kintsugi, c. 1100–1150 — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0 UK · CC BY-SA 2.0 uk · © Valerie McGlinchey
Kintsugi — Teapot lid repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © D-Kuru
Teapot lid repaired with kintsugi — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © D-Kuru

At a glance

Visual cues

  • Thin gold or silver lines that follow the break exactly
  • Line width that varies, widening into filled areas where a chip was lost
  • A trace of dark lacquer showing at the edge of the metal
  • Metal lines crossing the vessel's original painted decoration without regard for it

Best used for

  • Building a display where broken prototypes or stock are shown mended instead of discarded
  • Leaving a visible record of repair or revision on a product or a screen

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Dictionary entry

Type
Add no lettering, and let the metal lines share the surface with whatever marks the vessel already carries.
Composition
The break dictates the lines, so fit the fragments first and then decide how much metal each seam takes.
Material
Urushi lacquer joins and hardens the pieces, then gold or silver powder is laid over the seam.
Caution
Designing the gold lines before anything breaks places them where no stress runs, and the piece looks patterned rather than mended.
Further study
where the Getty places kintsugi, registered as a repairing process / the situations in which the alternative name kintsukuroi is used / the order of joining with urushi lacquer and then sprinkling the gold powder

Related entries

Often confused with

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Cite this entry

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Link
https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi
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[Kintsugi — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi)
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<a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/kintsugi">Kintsugi — IndexStyle</a>

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